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HISTORY 



OF THE 



FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, 



COMPRISING 



A VIEW OF THE INVASION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE 
BARBARIANS. 



BY J. C. L. DE SISMONDI. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CAREY, LEA & BLAXCHARD. 

1835. 



/S3 



ff 



</./-. 



^ 71. 



/ 



GRIGGS & CO., PRINTERS. 



PREFACE. 



The longest, the most universal, the most important of all the convulsions 
to which the human race has been exposed, is that which destroyed the 
whole fabric of ancient civilization, and prepared the elements out of wliich 
the structure of modern social life is composed. 

It found men at the hig-hest point of perfection which they had as yet at- 
tained to, whether in the career of social organization and of legislation, or 
in those of philosophy, literature, or art; and hurled them down by reite- 
rated shocks, each more terrific than the last, into the deepest night of bar- 
barism. Its influence embraced aU that portion of the human race which 
had any consciousness of its present condition, any power of preserving the 
memory of its past existence; consequently, all that portion, whose thoughts 
have come down to us by means of written records. Dating its commence- 
ment from the reign of the Antonines, — the period at wliich the human race 
seemed to have reached its highest point of prosperity, — and tracing its 
progress, through each succeeding shock, to the almost total dissolution of 
all the old-established associations of men, and to the reconstruction of soci- 
ety from its very foundations, this revolution continued through at least 
eight centuries. 

The Roman empire, which then extended over the whole of what was be- 
lieved to be the habitable earth, was invaded, ravaged, depopulated, dis- 
membered, by the various tribes of barbarians who rushed in upon all its 
borders. The conquering nations which had possessed themselves of its 
ruins, made repeated attempts to found monarchies upon its antique soil. 
All, after two or three generations, vanished; their imperfect and barbaric 
institutions were insufficient to the preservation of national life. Two great 
men arose — Mahommed in the East, Charlemagne in the West, — each of 
whom tried to put himself at the head of a new order of society. Each of 
them founded an empire, which, for a time, rivalled the ancient power of 
Rome. But the moment of reorganization was not yet come. The throne 
of the Khaliphs, the empire of the Carlovingians, soon crumbled into dust. 
The nations of the earth then seemed in a state of general dissolution; the 
various races of men were intermingled; a violent and short-lived power was 
seized by kings, dukes, emirs, who were not chiefs of the people, but acci- 
dental masters of a fraction of territory whose boundaries were marked by 
chance alone. 

No man could feel that he was bound to any land, as a son to his mother; 
no man could feel himself the lawful subject of any government; society 
could no longer afford protection to its members, and could no longer claim 
their allegiance in return. 

At length the moment arrived, in which the proprietors of land built 
themselves here and there strong holds, in which cities surrounded them- 
selves with walls, in which all men armed for their own defence. Each in- 
dividual was compelled to take a share of the government into liis own 
hands, and thus to begin society anew from its very elements. 



IV PREFACE. 

Such was the tremendous revolution which took place between the third 
and the tenth centuries of our era; and yet, from its very universality and du- 
ration, it is impossible to find one common name under which to designate it. 
If we would g-rasp one comprehensive idea of this gigantic catastrophe, 
we must, so to speak, collect its several incidents into one focus; we must 
reject all those circumstances which dissipate the attention; we must confine 
ourselves to the grand movements of each people and of each age; we must 
show the co-operation of the barbarian conquerors, who were themselves 
unconscious that they acted in concert; we must trace the moral histoiy of 
the world, regardless of the details of wars and of crimes; we must seek, in 
an enlightened appreciation of causes, that unity of design which it were 
impossible to find in a scene so full of rapid and varied movement. The 
earlier half of the middle ages appears to our eyes like a chaos; but this 
chaos conceals beneath its ruins most important subjects for reflection. 

After having devoted many years to the study of the revival of European 
civilization, it appeared to me that a work presenting to the reader the pro- 
minent features of this grand overthrow of ancient culture, collected into one 
picture, would not be without its advantages. Fifteen years have elapsed 
since I attempted to trace the course of this terrible revolution in a series of 
lectures, pronounced before a small audience at Geneva. Encouraged by 
the interest they appeared to excite, I preserved this vast picture, under the 
idea that, at some future day, 1 might exhibit it in one of the capitals of the 
world of letters. Advancing years warn me no longer to reckon on the pos- 
sibility of oval instruction. Having, moreover, already laid before the pub- 
lic a view of the history of the Italian republics, compressed into one of the 
small volumes of this series,* I thought that it might be useful to offer this 
also to a far more numerous class of readers than voluminous works can 
hope to obtain; and for this purpose to lay before them the results only of 
more extensive researches. 

I then undertook to compress within the limits of this volume, the ear- 
lier portion of the histoiy of the Middle Ages: that is, the history of the fall 
of the Roman empire; of the invasions of the barbarians, and their establish- 
ment among its ruins. It is more than the history of the destruction of an- 
cient civilization, or of the first attempts at the reconstruction of society, ac- 
cording to its modem forms; — it is the history of the sufferings of the human 
race, from the third century of the Christian era, to the close of the tenth. 

In this volume, even more than in the one which preceded it, I have been 
compelled to pass rapidly over events, and to dwell only on results; to ab- 
stain from all critical discussion, from all reference to authorities. 

I venture to indulge the hope, that among my readers, some will be found, 
who will examine the labours by which I prepared myself for the composi- 
tion of this summary. They will see, more especially in the early volumes of 
the histoiy of the French, that facts and results, which may appear to be 
lightly asserted or hastily deduced here, have been collected and matured by 
a long course of conscientious research. 

* Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL 

TABLE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTBOTJUCTION. GRANDEUR AND WEAKNESS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



Page 
21 



Importance of political Studies, 

or the Theory of Society- 
Divisions of those Sciences 
which have as their End the 
greatest social Good 22 

Doubts, Uncertainties, and op- 
posed Systems in all these 
Sciences ib. 

These Doubts ought not to di- 
minish our Efforts, as we are 
continually obliged to choose 
between Systems 24 

It is from Experience that we 
must seek Light in all Sci- 
ences 26 

In the social Sciences it is neces- 
sary to wait for Experience, 
not to lead it ib. 

Project of the Emperor Gallie- 
nus 27 

History, the Collection of all 
social Experiments 26 

Indulgence which it should teach 
us ^ 27 

Lessons to be sought in the His- 
tory of the World, from the 
fourth to the tenth Century 28 

Connexion between the Romans, 
their Conquerors, and our- 
selves 29 

Grandeur attached to the Recol- 



Page 
lections of the Roman Em- 
pire, even in its Decline 30 

Fixedness of the Limits of the 
Empire; Extent of the Ro- 
man Territory 31 

Frontiers of the Empire; Bor- 
der Nations 32 

Division of the Empire into four 
Prefectures; Gaul, Illyricum, 
Italy, and the East 33 

Number of great Cities; their 
great Buildings, all destined 
for public Utility 34 

Calamities of the Empire; its 
Vastness had destroyed Pa- 
triotism ^5 

No Community of Language; 
Greek and Latin; provincial 
Dialects 36 

State of the Population great 
Cause of Weakness; six dif- 
ferent Classes 37 

Oppression of the rural Popula- 
tion and Slaves; Depopula- 
tion ib. 

Predatory Life of runaway 
Slaves; Extinction of the 
Middle Class 39 

Population of great Cities; their 
Recklessness; fed and amused 
at the Expense of the State 40 



CHAPTER IL 

THE THBEE FIRST CENTURIES OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

at which this Histoiy corn- 



Cursory View of the Roman 
Empire before the Period 



raences 



41 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Vll 



CHAPTER IV. 



CONST ANTINE, HIS SOSTS AND HIS NEPHEWS. DIVISION OF THE FOtTRTH CENTURY 

INTO THREE PERIODS. REIGN OF CONSTANTINE, OF HIS FAMILY, AND OF THAT 

OF TALENTINIAN. 



A. D. 306. July 25th. Constantlne 
nominated by the Army to suc- 
ceed his Father, Constantius 
Chlorus 

Character of Constantine; he 
hesitates between the two 
Religions; his Cruelty to his 
Brothers 

310. Six Emperors at once? 
Constantine puts to Death his 
Father-in-Law Maximian 

323. Constantine reunites the 
Empire, and destroys all hb 
Rivals 

Foundation of Constantinople; 
Constantine abjures the Ro- 
man Character 

Constantine puts to Death al- 
most all his Kindred; his Pro- 
digality to the Church; his 
Death 

337. Partition of the Empire 
among the three Sons of Con- 
stantine; their civil Wars; 
they massacre their Cousins; 
Constantius alone sui-vives; 
he devotes all his Attention 
to religious Disputes. 



Page 



76 



78 



80 



81 



82 



ih. 



84 



Page 

Donatists; Circoncellions; reli- 
gious Suicides 85 

Arians and Trinitarians; the 
Church equally divided be- 
tween them 86 

Favour shown by Constantius to 
the Arians; Resistance of St. 
Athanasius 88 

Conquests of Sapor II. in the 
East; of the Franks and Al- 
mains in the West 89 

355. Constantius, being child- 
less, intrusts the Defence of 
the West to his Nephew Ju- 
lian; Character of Julian; 
Victories of Julian; his Re- 
call into the East, Novem- 
ber 3, 361; he succeeds Con- 
stantius 90 

363. Re-establishment of Poly- 
theism ib. 

Campaign of Julian against Sa- 
por II. 91 

June 26. Julian mortally wound- 
ed in repulsing the Persians 93 

His last Words reported by Am- 
mianus MarcelHnus 94 



CHAPTER V. 

VAIENTINIAN AND THEODOSIUS, — INVASION OP EASTERN EUROPE BT THE GOTHS. 

—364—395. 



363. Decline of the Empire ac- 
celerated by every Change ; 
Jovian; Degradation of the 
Pagans 96 

Election of Valentinian; his 
Talents and his Severity; 
he divides the Government 
with his Brother Valens 97 

Overwhelming Weight of Tax- 
ation; Oppression of the 
Curial Magistracy 98 

364—375. Victories of Valen- 
tinian; Success of Theodo- 
sius the Ancient against the 
Scots and the Moors 99 

Feebleness of Valens; he tries 
to conciliate the Persians 
and the Goths; Greatness 
of Hermanric in Dacia 100 



Death of Valentinian; Gratian 
and Valentinian II. succeed 
him; Approach of the 
Huns . 101 

Death of Hei'manric; Fall of the 
Empire of the Goths; their 
Terror at the Invasion of 
the Huns 103 

^76. The Goths obtain from 
Valens permission to cross 
the Danube, and to establish 
themselves within the Em- 
pire ih. 

378. They revolt in consequence 
of ill Treatment by the Ro- 
mans; Valens killed in an 
Engagement with them at 
Adnanople 104 

Eastern Eui'ope ravaged by the 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Page 
Goths; Massacre of Gothic 
Hostages in Asia 106 

Vengeance of Fritigern, King 
of the Goths; the East 
without an Emperor 107 

379. Jan. 19. Gratian gives the 
Empire of the East to 
Theodosius; Prudence and 
Moderation of Theodosius ih. 

382. Oct. 30. He induces the 
Goths to lay down their 
Arms 108 

He cedes Moesia to them; Civi- 
lization of the Goths in 
MfEsia 109 

Influence of the Franks at the 



Page 
Court of Gratian; Death of 
Gratian; Maximus in Bri- 
tain and Gaul 110 

Virtues of Theodosius; his Or- 
thodoxy 111 

Persecution of the Arians; St. 
Gregory Nazianzen; St. 
Ambrose; St. Martin 112 

Violence of Theodosius; Pardon 
of Antioch; Massacre of 
Thessalonica 113 

Penance imposed on Theodosius 

by St. Ambrose ib. 

Defeat and Death of Maximus; of 
Valentinian II. and Eugeni- 
us ; D eath of Theodosius 114 



CHAPTER VI. 

AUCADIUS and HONOIIIUS. invasion of the west by the GERMANIC NATIONS. 

—A. D. 395—423. 

402. Incapacity of Honorius; 
Alaric invades Italy; Resist- 
ance of Stilicho 124 

Defeat of Alaric ; Triumph of 
Honorius at Rome; he shuts 
himself up at Ravenna 125 

406. Great Invasion of the Ger- 
mans; Radogast in Italy; de- 
stroyed by Famine at Fiesole, 
by Stihcho 126 

406. Dec. 31. All the Germanic 
Tribes pass the Rhine and 
ravage Gaul 127 

409. Oct. 13. Invasion of Spain 
by the Suevi, the Vandals, 
and the Alans ib. 

408. Honorius distrusts Stilicho, 
and wants to govern by him- 
self 128 

408. Aug. 23. Stilicho killed at 
Ravenna by Order of Hono- 
rius; Massacre of the Hostages 
of the Confederates; fresh 
War with Alaric 129 

Alaric before Rome; impmdent 
Provocations of Honorius 130 

410. Aug. 24. Taking and sack 
of Rome by Alaric 132 

Death of Alaric; Peace with the 
Visigoths, to whom Honorius 
cedes Aquitaine 133 

Ataulphus, Son-in-law and Suc- 
cessor of Alaric, marries a 
Sister of the Emperor 134 



Theodosius unjustly accused of 
the Corruption and Effemi- 
nacy of the Romans; Pro- 
gress of Decay 115 

Final Degradation cr-used by the 
Adversity which destroyed the 
Middle Class 116 

The Populace and the Senators 
sought Forgetfulness of their 
Miseries in Sensual Pleasure 
and Vice 117 

The Massacre of Thessalonica 
furnishes a Proof of this State 
of constant Intoxication 118 

395. Jan. 17. Partition of the 
two Empires; the East to Ar- 
cadius, the West to Hono- 
rius 119 

Arcadius, aged eighteen, con- 
fided to the Care of Rufinus; 
betrays him to Death 120 

Honorius, aged eleven, under 
the Guardianship of Stilicho; 
Greatness of Mind of the lat- 
ter ib. 

Africa subject to the Children 
of Nabal the Moor, Proprie- 
tor of immense Domains 121 

396. Alaric, king of the Visi- 
goths, offended by Arcadius; 

he invades Greece 122 

Campaign of Stihcho in Greece 
against Alaric; the Arsenals 
of lUyiicum surrendered to 
Alaric 123 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



IX 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE BABBABIANS ESTABLISHED 



If THE ROMAN EMPIHE. 

-A. D. 412—453. 



-INVASION OF ATTIIA. 



Strange and motley Aspect of 
the Empire, from the Inter- 
mixture of the Barbarian with 
the Roman Population 

The Legions withdrawn from 
Britain; the Cities called upon 
to defend themselves 

Armorica, abandoned in like 
Manner by the Romans, forms 
a Celtic League 

The Franks remain Soldiers of 
the Empire; the Burgundians 
on the Rhone; the Visigoths 
behind the Loire 

Twofold Government; that of 
the Roman Prefects, and of 
the Barbaric Kings and Na- 
tional Assemblies 

Domination of the Priests at 
Tours; Paganism prevalent 
in the Country; State of 
Spain 

State of Italy, Pannonia, and 
Africa; Universal Suffering 

Last Years of Arcadius and Ho- 
norius; Minorities of Theodo- 
sius II. and of Valentinian III. 

Dynasties of Barbaric Kings; 
Frequency of Crime; Fratri- 
cides 

Fabulous Ancestry of the Frank- 
ic Kings. — Succession of Vi- 
sigothic Kings 



Page 

135 

136 

ih. 

isr 



139 
ih. 

140 

141 

142 



Page 

Suevi, Alans, and Vandals of 
Spain; Genseric, King of the 
Vandals 143 

429. Genseric lands in Africa; 
called in by Count Boniface, 
the Rival of ^tius 144 

Conquest of Africa by the Van- 
dals; their Ferocity; Taking 
of Carthage, Oct. 9, 429 145 

433. Attila, the Scourge of God, 
King of the Huns; Formation 
of that Monarchy 147 

Treaty of Attila with Theodo- 
sius II. ; The whole North of 
Europe and of Asia subject 
to Attila 148 

441 — 446. War of Attila against 
the Eastern Empire; Submis- 
sion of the Greeks; their Em- 
bassy to his Camp 149 

451. Attila crosses the Rhine, 
and enters Gaul; Efforts of 

• JEtius to arrest his Progress 150 
Victory obtained by JEtius over 
Attila, in the Plains of Cha- 
lons-sur-Mai*ne 151 

452. Invasion of Upper Italy by 
Attila; Formation of Venice 

by the Fugitives 152 

453. Death of Attila in Da- 
cia; Dissolution of his Em- 
pire 153 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FAtl. OF THE EMPIBE OF THE WEST. THE FB-AKKS IN GAUE. A. D. 476 511. 



Vital Energy of Political Bodies 
analogous to that of Indivi- 
duals 154 

Vast Empires sustain themselves 
by their Mass, but suffer also 
in proportion to their Mass 155 

The Western Empire might 
have endured as long as the 
Eastern, but perished through 
the Faults of its Chiefs 156 

455. June 12. Taking and Pil- 
lage of Rome by Genseric, 
called in by Eudoxia, Widow 
of Valentinian III. 157 

455 — 476. Ten Emperors in 
twenty-three Years; Ricimer 158 



Odoacer. — Suppression of the 
Western Empire (a. d. 476.) 159 

This Revolution did not appear 
so important as it was in fact; 
Italy under Odoacer ib. 

Several Provinces of the West 
continue to acknowledge the 
Emperors of the East 160 

486. Syagrius, Count of Soissons, 
conquered by Clovis, King of 
the Salian Franks 162 

The History of the Franks ought 
to be confined to what Grego- 
ry of Tours relates 163 

493 . Marriage of Clovis to Chlo- 
tilde of Burgundy, brought 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



rage 
about by the orthodox Bi- 
shops 164 

496. Chlotilde converts Clovis; 
Battle of Tolbiac; Baptism of 
Clovis 165 

Joy of the Clergy; Union of the 
Confederates and the Armo- 
ricans with the Franks 166 

500. War of Clovis with the Bur- 
gundians; Treachery of Gode- 
gisel; Flight of Gondebald 167 

507. War of Clovis with the Visi- 



goths, whom he first deceives 
by a Treaty; Battle of Vou- 
gle 

Clovis puts to Death all the long- 
haired Kings of his Family 

Favour shown by Clovis to the 
Church; Miracles attributed 
to him 

The Army of the Franks always 
united; its Power very supe- 
rior to that of the King 

Death of Clovis 



Page 



168 



169 



170 



171 
172 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE GOTHS AND THE THANKS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 

A. D. 493—561. 



The Barbarians had marched 
through Europe from East to 
West, and yet Constantinople 
had escaped them 173 

Succession of Emperors of the 
East, of the Sassanides in 
Persia, and of the Ostrogothic 
Kings 174 

Education of Theodoric in the 
Greek Empire; his War with 
the Emperor Zeno 175 

489—493. Theodoric, King of 
the Ostrogoths, conquers Italy 
from Odoacer; his Modei-a- 
tion 176 

493 — 526. Italy recovers her 
Prosperity under Theodoric's 
Government 177 

The Monuments of Rome pro- 
tected; Religious Tolei-ation; 
Severity of the early Part of 
his Reign 178 

Extent of his Domination; Let- 
ters of his Secretary Cassio- 
dorus 179 

Theodoric protects his Grandson 
by means of one of his 
Daughters. — Amalaric King 
of the Visigoths 180 

526 — 554. Athalaric, Son of an- 
other Daughter, succeeds him 



183 



184 



in Italy; Line of Ostrogothic 
Kings 181 

Monarchy of the Franks; they 
despise and oj^press conquered 
Nations 182 

The Franks easily incorporate 
the other Bai-barians with 
their own Forces; the whole 
of Germany submits to them 
The Thuringians; their Fratri- 
cides; they are conquered by 
the Franks 
511 — 561. Reigns of the Four 
Sons of Clovis; Thierry, Chlo- 
domir, Childebert, and Chlo- 
thaire * 185 

War of the Franks in Italy; War 
with the Burgundians; End 
of their Monarchy 186 

Reign of Gondebald 187 

Chlothaire and Childebert mur- 
der the Sons of their Brother 
Chlodomir 188 

Partiality of the Priests for the 
Sons of Clovis; they permit 
them to practise Polygamy 189 
Chlothaire causes his Son 
Chramne, with his Children, 
to perish in the Flames 190 

Death of Chlothaire; the Crown 
passes to his four Sons ib. 



CHAPTER X. 

JUSTINIAN. A. D. 527 — 565. 



Brilliant Light thrown on the 
Reign of Justinian by two 
Greek Historians 191 

Parallel in the Splendour and 



the Misery which characte- 
rize the Reigns of Justinian 
and of Louis XIV. 192 

Intolerance; Abolition of the 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XI 



Page 
Schools of Athens, and the 
Consulate and Senate of 
Rome 193 

Great Calamities; Invasion of 
Barbarians; Earthquakes; Pes- 
tilence 194 

Justinian, Nephew of a Soldier, 
was not a General; his Ambi- 
tion of Conquest ih. 

Wars of the Bulgarians and the 
Slavonians; Persian War; 
Peace of 531 with Chos- 
roes I. 195 

A&r—52,S. King-dom of the Afii- 
can Vandals after the Death of 
Genseric 196 

Belisarius chosen by Justinian to 
cany on the War as^ainst the 
Vandals " 197 

533. Expedition of Belisarius 
into Africa; Victor}^ over the 
Vandals; Taking of Carthage 198 

Conquest of Africa; Captivity 
of the King of the Vandals; 
Annihilation of his Nation; 
Recall of Belisarius 199 

526—535. The Ostrogoths in 
Italy after the Death of Theo- 
doric; Amalasonta 200 

535. Belisarius sent against the 
Ostrogoths; his Landing in 



Page 
Sicily; Vitiges Successor to 
Theodatus 201 

536. Dreadful Calamities inflict- 
ed on Italy by two Heroes, 
Vitiges and Belisarius 202 

536 — 540. Taking and Retaking 
of Rome; Belisarius ill-sup- 
ported by Justinian; Incur- 
sions of the Franks 203 

539. Vitiges Captive; Recall of 
Belisarius; Ruin of Africa 
after his Departure 204 

541 — 544. Ruin of Italy after his 
Recall lb. 

Power and Prosperity of the Os- 
trogoths restored by Totila 205 

544 — 553. Belisarius sent again 
to oppose Totila; his second 
Recall; the Goths defeated by 
Narses 206 

559—563. LastVictoiyofBeH- 
sarius; Injustice and Ingrati- 
tude of Justinian; Belisarius 
reduced to Beggary 207" 

Gloiy of Justinian as a Legisla- 
tor ib. 

The Empire torn by the Fac- 
tions of the Blues and 
Greens; great Sedition of 
532 208 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE lOT.IBARDS AND THE FRANKS. A. D. 561 — 613, 



From the Time of Justinian our 
Interest is divided between 
the Greek Empire and the 
Franks 209 

Series of Greek Emperors; Birth 
of Mahommed 210 

Reign of Chosroes H. in Persia 211 

Narses, Exarch of Italy; the Ge- 
pidse and the Lombards be- 
tween the Alps and the Ds' 
nube _ lb. 

Romantic Adventures of Alboinj 
his Conquest of the Kingdom 
of tlie Gepidse, which he 
cedes to the Avars 212 

568. Alboin Invades Italy at the 
Head of the Lombards; Re- 
sistance of the Cities 213 

The maritime Towns of Italy 
governed by their Curiae, un- 
der the Protection of the 
Greeks 214 

Independence of the maritime 



Towns of Spain, Africa, and 
Illyricum; Growth of Munici- 
pal Liberties 215 

Independence of the Lombards^ 
Interregnum ; their thirty 
Dukea m Italy 216 

56\. The four Frankic Kings, 
Sons of Chlothaircf territorial 
Aristocracy formed among 
the Franks ib. 

The Mord Dorriy (erroneously 
called Major Domus,) or 
Chief Justiciary of the 
Franks; the four Kingdoms 
of Germany 217 

Characters of the four Brothers; 
Gontran, surnamed " the 
Good;" Chilperic, the Nera 
of France 219 

Fredegunde, Wife of Chilperic 220 

Brunechilde, Wife of Siegbert 221 

Progress of Aristocracy in Aus- 



Xll 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Page 
trasla; Efforts of Gontran to 
check it 221 

584. Curious Picture of the 
PlaidSf Parliament or Nation- 
al Assembly of Austrasia, 
given by Gregory of Tours 222 

Mutual Insults of King Gontran 
and the Aiistrasian Nobles 223 

Childebeil II. arrived at Man's 
Estate; his Ferocity; his 
Death 224 



Page 

596. Three Kings in their Mi- 
nority under the Wardship of 
Queens Fredegunde and 
Brunechilde 225 

Strength of Character and Ta- 
lents of Brunechilde equalled 
by her Ferocity 226 

Victories and Ascendency of 
Brunechilde; she is at length 
conquered by Chlothaire II. 227 

Her miserable Death, a. d. 613 ib. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE EAST ATST) THE WEST IN" THE SEVENTH CENlTURT, AND DOWIT TO THE 
ATTACKS OF THE MUSULMANS. 



Obscurity of the History of the 
seventh Century 228 

Total Absence of historical Au- 
thorities both in the East and 
the West 229 

568—774. Firm Settlement of 
the Lombards in Italy, and 
their rapid Advance in Civili- 
zation ib. 

613—638. Extent of the Frank- 
ic Empire under Chlothaire 
II. and Dagobert 230 

State of Commerce; the Mer- 
chant King, Samo ib. 

Character of Dagobert; contra- 
dictory Qualities attributed to 
him 231 

Cruelty and Sensuality of Da- 
gobert; his Friendship for 
St. Elol and St. Ouen; his 
Bounties to the Monks 232 

638—752. Succession of the 
Thirteen Faineant Kings; 
they die of Debaucliciy in 
early Youth 233 

Grand Struggle between the 
Nobles and the Freemen; 
Ebrouin, Chief of the latter 234 

Rivalry of Ebrouin and of Leger 
Bishop of Autun 235 

"Victory of Ebrouin at Pont St. 
Maxence ib. 

687. St. Leger put to Death as 
a Regicide; Victory of Pepin 
of Heristal at Testry 236 

Triumph of the Aristocracy at 
Testry succeeded by the Re- 
storation of Germanic Cus- 
toms and Language ib. 

567—642. The East during the 
Reigns of Justin II., Tiberius 



II., Maurice, Phocas, and He- 
raclius 237 

Explanation of their Revolutions 
to be sought in the Disputes 
of the Church concerning the 
two Natures 238 

Controversies of the Monophy- 
sites, Monothelites, &c. 239 

To escape Persecution, they 
throw themselves into the 
Arms of the Enemies of the 
Empire 240 

567—574. Wars of Justin XL 
against Chosroes Nushirvan, 
King of Persia, and against 
the Avars 241 

574—602. Virtues of Tiberius 
II., who is nominated by Jus- 
tin II. as his Successor; Ta- 
lents of Maurice, who suc- 
ceeds him 242 

Dangers of the War with 
the Avars; War of Maurice 
against Hormouz, King of 
Persia tb. 

Maurice replaces Chosroes II., 
Son of Hormouz, on the 
Throne; Assassination of Mau- 
rice 243 

602—610. Reign of Phocas; 
his Ferocity; he is attacked 
by Chosroes II. 244 

610—642. Reign of Hem- 
clius; Chosroes wrests the 
whole of Asia and Egypt 
from him 245 

The Malecontents repent of 
having called in the Persians; 
they recall Heraclius into 
Asia 246 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XIU 



Heraclius conquers or lays waste 
Persia, whilst the Persians oc- 



Page Page 

cupy the whole of Roman 
Asia 247 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MAHOMMED. A. D. 569 — 632. 



Extent and physical Constitu- 
tion of Arabia; Want of Wa- 
ter almost universal 248 

Oases; Yemen; free Cities of 
the Red Sea; peculiar Cha- 
racteristics of the Arabs 249 

The Poverty of the Arab the 
Guarantee of his Liberty, 
which is complete 250 

The Arab does not recognise the 
Rights of territorial Property; 
he is at War with every 
Stranger ib. 

Genealogies; hereditary Ven- 
geance; Poetry and Elo- 
quence 251 

Influence of Religion among the 
Arabs; Toleration of all Sects; 
Worship of the Kaaba 252 

466 — 609. Birth of Mahommed; 
his Marriage with Kadijah; 
his religious Studies 253 

Mahommed preached the true 
God to Idolaters; ought he to 
be called an Impostor? 254 

Respect of Mahommed for the 



written Word; Publication 
and Beauty of the Koran 255 

Laws of Charity, of Prayer, of 
Cleanliness; Sobriety; Fasts; 
greater Indulgence for the 
Pleasures of Love 256 

Hell of a limited Duration; Pa- 
radise; Fatalism as to the 
Hour of Death 257 

609. Preachings of Mahommed; 
his first Disciples; the Inhabi- 
tants of Mecca are irritated 258 

622. Flight of Mahommed from 
Mecca to Medina, where his 
Reign commences 259 

622. Military Spirit of Mahom- 
med; his Frugality; his early 
Battles 260 

629. Conquest of Mecca; Con- 
quest of the Rest of Arabia 262 

Declaration of War against the 
Romans ib. 

Decline of Mahommed's Health 263 

Last Words of Mahommed; his 
Death 264 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CONatTESTS OP THE SAHACEWS UNDER THE FIRST KHALTPHS. A. D, 632 680. 



Islamism promulgated beyond 
the Confines of Arabia, after 
the Death of Mahommed 266 

The Arabs, hitherto so little 
feared, adopt no new Wea- 
pons; their Spirit alone is 
changed ib. 

Enthusiasm and Disinterested- 
ness of all: Abubekr, the first 
Khaliph or Lieutenant of the 
Prophet 268 

634. Omar succeeds him; his 
Abstinence and Simplicity; 
Conquests of his Lieutenants, 
Khaled, Amru, and Abuobe- 
idah 269 

His Instructions to his Lieute- 
nants; State of Syria after the 
Wars of Chosroes 270 



The Khaliph declares War at 
the same time against the Ro- 
mans and the Persians; triple 
Alternative oifered them 272 

Submission of Bosra, Damascus, 
Emessa, and Balbec; their 
Conversion to Islamism 273 

637. Omar goes in Person to 
take Possession of Jerusalem; 

his Moderation 274 

Taking of Tyre, Tripoli, and 
Antioch; Defeat of Yezde- 
gerd; Conquest of Persia 275 

638. The Arabs invited into 
Egypt by the Copts; Amru 
appears before Memphis; 
Surrender of Memphis; Al- 
liance with the Coptsj Siege 

of Alexandi'ia ,276 



XIV 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Page 

640. Dec. 22(1.— Conquest of 
Alexandria; Story of the burn- 
int? of the Libraiy 278 

Change in the Manners and Ha- 
bits of the Musulman Army; 
Discordance with those of the 
Khaliphs 279 

644 — 655. Othman, Successor 
to Omar; his Victories; Com- 
plaints of the Army; his As- 
sassination 280 

636—661. Ah, the fourth Kha- 



Page 

. liph; Disturbances excited by 
Ayesha, the Widow of Ma- 
hommed; Battle of the Camel 281 

Revolt of Moaviah at Damascus; 
civil War; Assassination of 
Ali 282 

Schism of the Shiahs and the 
Sunnis; Conquests of Moaviah 
in Asia and Africa ib. 

680. Death of Hossein, Son of 
Ali, and Grandson of the Pro- 
phet; the Fatimides in Arabia 283 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE OMMIADES AlfD CHRISTIANITT. A. D. 661 — 750. 



661 — 750. Fourteen Ommiades 
Khaliphs succeed each other 
at Damascus; they plung-e into 
a Life of Voluptuousness 286 

Their Subjects, the Asiatics, for- 
merly so effeminate and cow- 
ardly, preserve their Enthu- 
siasm and Bravery 287 

The pleasure derived from the 
Development of the Mind, 
and the Energy, their Re- 
ward ib. 

Mahommed called on Men to 
think, and to preach his Doc- 
trine; his later Successors pro- 
hibited Thought 288 

Progress of Literature; Ma- 
hommed had made no Attack 
upon Liberty 289 

The Nation, moved by a Passion 
common to all, was free, even 
while it obeyed 290 

Attacks of the Arabs on Christen- 
dom, in Greece and in Spain; 
Family of Heraclius 291 

641 — 711. Constantine Pogona= 
tus defends Constantinople 
against Moaviah. 293 

668 — 675. Invention of the 
Greek Fire ib. 

685 — 711. Reign of Justinian 
II.; his Ferocity; his Ten 
Years' Exile; his Restoration 294 

Civil Wars in the Empii-e of the 



Khaliphs, once more save the 
Greeks 295 

715. Moslemah marches to the 
Attack of Constantinople ib. 

717—741. Reign of Leo the 
Isaurian; Iconoclast Contro- 
versy 296 

665 — 689. Conquest of Africa 
by Akbah 297 

692—698. Conquest and De- 
struction of Carthage ib. 

Conquest of Mauritania; the 
Arabs summoned into Spain 
by some Visigothic Chiefs 298 

554—711. Twenty Visigothic 
Kings at Toledo; their De- 
cline, their Luxuiy, and Indo- 
lence 299 

711. Tarik, at the Head of the 
Musulmans, defeats Rodrigo, 
King of the Visigoths, at 
Xeres 300 

711—713. The whole of Spain 
conquered by the Musulmans ib. 

State of the Franks at the Death 
of Pepin of Heristal 501 

715—732. Conquests of the Sa- 
racens in Southern Gaul; their 
Incursions as far as Autun 302 

732. Charles Martel defeats the 
Saracens near Poictiers, and 
saves Europe from their In- 
roads 303 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XV 



CHAPTER XVr. 



THE CARLO VINGIANS. EAKLT PART OP THE BEIGN OP CHARLEMAGNE. 

A. D. 714—800. 



Page 

714 — 741. Profound Obscurity 
of the Eighth Century; Ad- 
ministration of Charles Martel 304 

Continual Wars of Charles Mar- 
tel 305 

Faineans Kings maintained by 
him in Luxury 306 

Confusion of Charles Martel 
with Charlemagne by Ro- 
mance Writers ih. 

741—747. Hatred of the Church 
for Charles Martel; Descrip- 
tion of his Damnation; Fana- 
ticism of his Son Karloman 307 

741 — 752. Ambition and Power 
of his other Son, Pepin; Pow- 
er granted by him to the 
Bishops in the Diets 309 

752 — ^768. Pepin crowned by 
the Pope; Deposition of the 
Merovingians ; Revival of Ger- 
man Ascendency 310 

The German Dukes again sub- 
jected to Pepin; Conquest of 
the South of Gaul 311 

Astolfo, King of the Lombards, 
conquers the Exarchate, and 
menaces Rome; the Pope has 
recourse to Pepin 312 



Page 

768. Death of Pepin; Charle- 
magne begins the Work of 
civilizing Europe 313 

Errors and Crimes of his Youth, 
before his Mind was enlight- 
ened ih. 

Education of Charlemagne; his 
Learning and Accomplish- 
ments 314 

Different Races of Men who in- 
habited Gaul and Germany 316 

Neighbours of Charlemagne; 
he makes War on all in turn 
successfully 317 

773—774. Conquest of Desi- 
derio, King of Lombardy 318 

Wars against the Saxons; Dan- 
gers with which they threat- 
ened France in the succeed- 
ing Generation 319 

Obstinacy of the Struggle; Re- 
sistance of Wedekind, one 
of the Kings of Westphalia 321 

Yearly Expeditions; Massacre of 
the Saxons at Verden in 742 322 

Three successive Wars against 
the Saxons; Civilization intro- 
duced among them by Charle- 
magne 323 



CHAPTER XVir. 

CHARLEMAGIfE EMPEROR. A. D. 800 814. 



Last Conquests of Charlemagne 
provoked by the mutual De- 
nunciations of his Neighbours 324 

800. Relation of Charles to the 
two Popes, Adrian and Leo 
m. 325 

Dec. 25th. — Coronation of Char- 
lemagne by Leo HE. as Roman 
Emperor 326 

Charles puts himself at the Head 
of Civilization; Reforms in the 
Schools; Musical Reforms 327 

Architecture; Useful Arts; Agri- 
culture; Royal Cities 328 

The Accumulation of Wealth 
causes the Increase of the 
Number of Slaves 329 

Kuin of the free Proprietors of 



Land by the Terms of Milita- 
ry Service 330 

Imperial Deputies of Charle- 
magne; Collection of barbaric 
Laws still in force 331 

The Empire enfeebled by its 
very Prosperity; its Relations 
with the Greek Empire and 
the Khaliphate 333 

717—780. Glorious Reigns of 
the three Isaurian or Iconoclast 
Emperors 334 

780. The Empress Irene re- 
establishes the Worship of 
Images; Images worshipped 
in the East; Relics in the 
West ib. 

Worship of Images rejected by 



XVI 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Page 



the Council of Frankfurt; Ex- 
pedient of the Pope to put 
an End to the Dispute 335 

797. Irene puts to death her 
Son, Constantine V., and 
reigns alone 337 

Charlemagne delivered from all 
Fear of the Saracens; Divi- 
sion of their Empire 338 

750. The Abbassides succeed the 
Ommiades in the East; Khali- 
phate of Corduba in the West 339 



Page 



Love of the Abbassides for Let- 
ters; Embassy of Harun al 
Rashid to Charlemagne 340 

Charlemagne partitions Europe 
among his Sons; Beauty and 
Frailty of his Daughters 341 

Death of his eldest Son and 
Daughter *i. 

Louis proclaimed Emperor 342 

Death of Charlemagne, January 
28th, A. D. 814 ih. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



XOtJlS XE BEBONNAIBE 

Louis le Debonnaire, (the Good- 
natured,) or the Pious; his 
superstitious Devotion; his 
Weakness; Sufferings and 
Oppressions from which he 
delivers the People; Disor- 
ders of the Palace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle 343 

The Franks still courted by all 
the surrounding Nations; 
Louis's Irresolution 346 

817. Revolt of Bernhard, King 
of Italy; his Punishment (a. 
D. 819;) Judith, second Wife 
of Louis 347 

822. Public Penance of Louis; 
Contempt excited by it; Sus- 
picions against Judith 348 

Universal Discontent and Disor- 
der; Trade in Frank Slaves 
with the Musulmans 349 

626. Baptism of the Danish 
King Heriolt (Harold;) Inva- 
sions of the Normans; War 
of the Britons and Gascons 351 

Alfonso the Chaste, Bernardo 
del Carpio, and Abderahman; 
rapid Succession of the Popes 352 

Power of the Dukes of Bene- 
vento; Republic of Venice; 
the Slavonic tribes at War 
with the Empire 353 

New Power of the Bulgarians; 
Crete and Sicily conquered 
by the Musulmans 354 



.—A. D. 814—840. 

Succession of the Iconoclast 
Emperors in Greece 355 

820. Michael the Stammerer 
transferred from a Prison to 
the Throne H' 

842. Theophilus, on his Death- 
bed, causes the Head of his 
Brother-in-law and Friend to 
be brought to him 356 

830. Louis compelled by his 
Sons to renounce his Powers, 
and to confine his Wife Judith 
in a Convent 357 

Jealousy between the Germans 
and the Gauls, who assume 
the Name of Franks or 
French 358 

833. Louis, restored to Power 
by his German Subjects, 
again excites universal Dis- 
content 359 

833. June 24th. — Louis aban- 
doned by all his Followers on 
the Liigenfeld {field of a lie,-) 

his public Penance 360 

834. Lothaire deserted in his 
Turn in favour of Lovis; dis- 
graceful Civil Wars 361 

838. Death of Pepin; new Par- 
tition of the Monarchy; In- 
sults of neighbouring Na- 
tions 362 

840. June 20th.— Death of 
Louis le Debonnaire 363 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE SONS OF LOUIS LE DEBONNAIIIE. A. D. 840 — 869. 

Monarchies 
Dissolution of the Empire, 



Epoch of the Partition of Eu- 
rope into a great Number of 



364 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XVU 



Page 
caused in great Part by the 
Incapacity of its Chiefs 365 

Louis le Debonnaire had divided 
the Empire among* his four 
Sons, but had shaken their 
Claims 366 

War breaks out among- the four 
Brothers; the Romans try to 
throw off the Yoke of the 
Germans 367 

841. June 25th.— Great Battle 
of Fontenai, between the four 
Brothers; Number of Dead 369 

843. August. — ^Partition of the 
Empire; Independence of Ita- 
ly, France, and Germany 370 

Ravages of the Northmen, who 
penetrate into the Interior 
along the Courses of the 
Rivers ih. 

545. March 28th.— The North- 
men enter Paris; Charles the 
Bald makes no attempt to de- 
fend his Capital 372 

Greatness of Hastings, an Ad- 
venturer, who has become 
Chief of the Northmen; the 
Saracens threaten Rome 373 

All the great Cities pillaged in 
turn; the Princes call in the 



Page 

Assistance of the Enemies of 
their Faith 373 

The Northmen remain without 
Fear in the Middle of France; 
universal Cowardice 374 

The Cowardice of the Nobles 
in the midst of an enslaved 
Population, avowed by all co- 
temporary Writers ib. 

Growth of the Wealth of tlie 
Clergy, Extinction of noble 
Famihes 377 

Ambition of the Priests; they 
utterly destroy the little re- 
maining Courage of their Vas- 
sals 378 

Fresh Civil Wars; each of the 
Sons of Louis partitions his 
Kingdom among his Children 379 

Jurisdiction assumed by the 
Priests over Kings, with rela- 
tion to Marriage 380 

Lothaire II. and his two Wives; 
Judgments pronounced upon 
them by the Church ib. 

869. I.othaire II. perishes with 
his Army by the Judgment of 
God, after receiving the Com- 
munion from the Hands of the 
Pope 383 



CHAPTER XX. 



DISSOLUTIOIf OF THE EMPIRE OP THE EAST. — END OP THE SINTH CENTTJRT. 



Last struggles of the Carlovin- 
gian Race in the last Years of 
the Ninth Century 384 

Ignominious Reign of Charles 
the Bald, who makes War 
only on his Relations 386 

Partition of the States of Lo- 
thaire and of Louis the Ger- 
manic, son of Charles the 
Bald 387 

875. Charles the Bald Emperor; 
the Saracens menace Rome; 
the Northmen Masters of 
France 388 

880. Charles the Bald flees be- 
fore Karloman, and dies on 
Mont Cenis 389 

Charles the Fat unites Italy to 
Germany and to Lorraine; 
Louis the Stammerer in 
France 390 

877. The Countships rendered 
hereditary; Louis the Stam- 



merer subject to the Aristo- 
cracy 392 

879. The Sons of Louis the 
Stammerer crowned at Ferri- 
eres; Boson proclaimed King 
at Mantaille ib. 

Peath of Louis III. and Kai-Io- 
man. Sons of Louis the Stam- 
merer 394 

882—884. Charles the Fat, 
sole Survivor, unites the 
whole Empire; he suffers the 
Northmen to besiege Paris 395 

888. Deposition of Charles the 
Fat; Seven or Eight Kings 
chosen by provincial Diets ib. 

Universal Want of Histories at 
this Period; it is, neverthe- 
less, the Age of Revival 397 

Abject Humiliation of the Em- 
pire during the whole of the 
Ninth Century 398 

The Rights of Property abu- 



3 



XVlll 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Page 
sively exercised over Slaves, 
had destroyed the Popula- 
tion 399 

Subjection and Decline of Ci- 
ties; Nothing" remaining- in 
France but Convents and Fo- 
rests 400 

The Smallness of States com- 



Page 

pels the Sovereig-ns of them 

to employ greater FnKk-nce 401 

The new Lords of the Soil want 
Soldiers, and consequently 
encourag-e Population 402 

Rapid Increase of Population in 
the Tenth and Eleventh Cen- 
turies 403 



CHAPTER XXI. 

EKTGLAIS-D TO THE T.SD OF THE HEIGN OF ALFRED THE GKEAT. A. D. 449 — 900. 



From the Time of the Recall of 
the Leg-ions, Britain, severed 
from the Rest of the World, 
is forg-otten 404 

Its States, at once small and bar- 
barous, can excite no Uvely 
Interest 405 

Strug-g-le between the ancient 
British Inhabitants and the 
Ficts and Scots 406 

449 — The British Prince Vor- 
tig-ern introduces the Saxon 
Firates; their War with the 
Britons 407 

600. After 150 Years of War, 
the Island shared by three 
Races: the Saxon Heptarchy; 
the Cymri; the Gael 408 

The Cymri in Wales remain 
Christians; they colonize Ire- 
land; Conversion of the Scot- 
tish Gael 409 

Slave Trade in Eng'land; Gre- 
gory the Great converts the 
Saxons in the sixth Century 410 
'827. In the Heptarchy four 
Saxon and three Ang-lian 
King-doms; Power of Eg- 
bert 411 

833. Invasions of the Normans 



and Danes, more formidable 
since the Union of the Island 412 

838 — 857. Resemblance be- 
tween Ethelwolf and Louis 
le Debonnaire; Calamities of 
England 413 

The Danes ravage France; de- 
termine to conquer England; 
the Sons of Raegner Lodbrog 415 

872. The Danes occupy Eng- 
land, as far south as the 
Thames; Beginning of Al- 
fred's Reign 416 

877. The Danes become Mas- 
ters of Wessex; Alfred obliged 
to conceal himself at iEthe- 
ling-ey 417 

Noble Character of Alfred; he 
waits till his People be tired 
of the Danish Yoke 418 

880. The Danes abandon Eng- 
land to attack France; Navy 
of Alfred 420 

893. Alfred Master of all Eng- 
land; his Parliament, Witena- 
gemote; Laws of Alfred; Di- 
vision of England; System of 
mutual Checks and Securities; 
Alfred renews his Studies 422 

900. His Death 424 



CHAPTER XXII. 



EUROPE AKH ASIA BURIJ,"G THE REIGNS OF CHARLES THE SIMPLE, OF BERSN6ER, 
A]S"D OF HENRT THE FOWLER, A. D. 900 936. 



Complete Dissolution of the 
Bonds of Society, both in the 
East and West 

Every Year deprives the Kha- 
liphs of some of their Pro- 
vinces 

936. The Emir al Omara 

867—959. The Macedonian Dy- 
nasty at Constantinople; Ta- 
lents of Basil; his Laws; the 



425 



426 

427 



Son Leo; of his Grandson 
Constantine 428 

888 — 915. Independence of the 
Italian Dukes; numerous Can- 
didates for the Empire 430 

915—923. Reign and Talents 
of Berenger; his Successors 
on the Throne of Italy 431 

898—929. Charles the Simple 
of France; his Incapacity; the 
Dukes no longer obey him 432 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 



XIX 



Page 
His "Retreat to Laon; his Depo- 
sition; Power of Robert Duke 
of France 433 

Establishment of the Normans 
in Nenstria; Adventures and 
Greatness of Rollo 434 

911. The Normans are convert- 
ed, and receive Normandy to 

be held by them as a Fief 435 

912. Baptism of Rollo; regular 
Establishment of the Feudal 
System in Normandy 437 

Rollo puts his Shores in a State 
to resist future Invasions ib. 

The Normans adopt the Romanz 
French Language, which they 
improve 438 

Causes which compel the Nor- 



Page 
mans to abandon their System 
of Pillage 439 

The same Causes act upon the 
Saracens and Hungarians 440 

The Saracens at Frassineto and 
at St. Maurice, in 894; arri- 
val of the Hungarians in Eu- 
rope 441 

The Ravages committed in Ger- 
many by the Hungarians 
during the Reign of Louis IV. 442 

918—936. Germany under the 
Government of a great Prince, 
Henry the Fowler 443 

The Hungarians defeated on all 
sides, in Italy, in France, in 
Germany 444 



CHAPTER XXIir. 



ENB OF THE TENTH CENTURY. 



The Defeat of the Hungarians, 
the last Event which is a 
Source of common Joy to all 
Europe 445 

936—973. Reign of the great 
Otho; he does not at first act 
according to the Dictates of 
Virtue 446 

Otho I. reconstitutes the Em- 
pire by eveiy where pro- 
moting the Growth of pro- 
vincial Authorities 447 

Influence possessed by Otho over 
the last of the Carlovingians 
in France, Louis IV., and Lo- 
thaire 448 

Otho, unaided by Combat or Vic- 
tory, unites Italy to Germany 449 

Otho protects the oppressed In- 
habitants of Italy, and receives 
from their Hands the Imperial 
Crown 450 

Annihilation of the royal Power 
in France and Burgundy 451 

Kings affc^rd no Protection either 
to the Nobility, the Clergy, or 
the People; they pass their 
Lives in Convents 452 

Legislation is suspended; the 
Benefices of the Clergy are 
usurped by secular Nobles 453 

Ruin of the Cities every where 



save in Italy; Commerce only 
carried on by travelling Mer- 
chants 455 

All the mechanical Trades exer- 
cised by Serfs; Origin of small 
Towns 456 

No City in the North laid Claim 
to any Freedom or Privilege j 
Silence of History 457 

954 — 986. Rivalry in France be- 
tween Lothaire and his Cou- 
sin, the Count of Paris ib. 

Lothaire and his Son, Louis V., 
the Objects of universal Con- 
tempt; their Death 458 

987. July 3.— Usurpation of 
Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, 
who had previously done no- 
thing to signalize himself 459 

973—983. Otho II. in Germany 
and Italy; his War with the 
Greeks 460 

980. He is made Pnsoner, but 
escapes by swimming from a 
Greek Galley 461 

983—1002. Reign of Otho III.; 
his Contest with Crescentius; 
End of the House of Saxony 462 

Dissolution of all the old Monar- 
chies; the Work of Destruc- 
tion is accomplished t&. 



XX 



ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE TEAR 1000. 



Page 

Unity necessary to the under- 
standing- of any Subject; 
Want of all real Unity in His- 
tory 464 

The Destruction of Ancient Ci- 
vilization, the Subject of this 
History 465 

Recapitulation of the Revolutions 
which brought about this Re- 
sult; Fall of the Empire 466 

The Goths and the Franks, the 
Arabs, and the Carlovingian 
Empire 467 

The Year 1000 regarded as the 
appointed Time of the End 
of the World ib. 

Historians are silent, because 
they did not look forward to 
any Posterity 468 

In the Year 1000, the Spirit of 
Erudition distinguishes tlie 
Greeks; the Spirit of Liberty, 
the ItaUans; the Spirit of Chi- 
valry, the Franks 470 

The Greeks, preserving an im- 
mense Store of Learning", lose 
all creative Power. ib. 

The Existence of Books is not 
sufficient to secure the Exer- 
cise of the Mind 471 

The Greeks, perfectly skilled in 
their own Antiquities, made 
no practical Apphcation of 
them 472 



Page 



The Italians had forgotten their 
ancient Literature, but had 
Soul enough to create a new 
one 474 

All the Towns of Italy form 
themselves into Republics; 
their rapid Progress 475 

Development of every Virtue 
and every Talent effected by 
Liberty ib. 

The Chivalry of the Franks was 
the Liberty of the Nobles 
alone 476 

The Nobles, strong in their 
Castles and their Armour, are 
sensible of their Independence 477 

The Feudal System; its Virtues, 
its Portion of Liberty, its 
Harshness ib. 

Difference of those Govern- 
ments whose Springs of Ac- 
tion are respectively Virtue 
or Egotism 480 

The Principle of Utility is the 
ultimate Test of Virtue, but 
not its practical Guide 481 

The common Good of aU has 
been called Country, and un- 
der that Name has excited 
Self-devotion ib. 

On the Ruins of the ancient 
World arise new Countries, 
and new Virtues ib. 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



FALL. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 



CHAPTER I. 



Value of Histoiy as illustrative of the moral and political Sciences. — Diffi- 
culty and Importance of the Study of those Sciences. — Period of History 
embraced by the following Work; — The Struggles between the Barba- 
nans and the Romans, the final Destruction of tlie Empire of the Westj 
and the succeeding dark Ages, down to the Commencement of the ele- 
venth Centuiy. -^Extent, Magnificence, and Weakness of the Roman Em- 
pire. — Frontier Line of the Roman Territory from the time of Augustus to 
that of Constantine. — What it included. — Division of the Empire into four 
praetorial Prefectures. — Enumeration of Provinces. — External Grandeut 
contrasted with internal Decay. — ^Want of national Unity. — State of the 
population. — Enormous Wealth of the senatorial Class. — Miserable and 
abject Condition of the Peasantry and Slaves. — Decline of Population.— 
Entire Debasement of the Roman Character. 

Among the studies calculated to elevate the heaft, or to en- 
lighten the mind, few can be classed above that of history, when 
it is considered, not as a barren catalogue of incidents, persons, 
and dates, but as an essential part of the great system of moral 
and political science; as the collection of all the facts and expe- 
riments which tend to throw light on the theory of the public 
weal. 

The social instinct, the need of combination, is a necessary 
consequence of the weakness of man; of his inability to resist, 
by his own unaided force, all the sufterings and the dangers by 
which he is perpetually surrounded. He unites with his fellow 
men to obtain from them that assistance which he offers to them 
in return; he seeks from them a defence against the infirmities 
of infancy, old age, and disease; he asks their co-operation in 
repelling the hostile powers of nature; in protecting the efforts 

4 



2*2 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. I. 

made by each for his own well-being; in securing the enjoyment 
of the property he has acquired, the leisure he has earned, and 
the use he makes of that leisure for the development of liis mo- 
ral existence. Two objects perfectly distinct present themselves 
to his mind as soon as he is capable of reflecting; first, the satis- 
faction and happiness he can enjoy with the faculties with which 
he feels himself endowed; secondly, the improvement of those 
faculties, and his progress towards a more perfect state of being. 
He seeks not only to be happy; he seeks to render himself wor- 
thy of happiness of a more exalted nature. Happiness and vir- 
tue are the twofold end,—- first, of all the individual efforts of 
man; secondly, of all his combined efforts. He seeks in his fa- 
mily, in his class, in his country, the means of making this two- 
fold progress; nor can any association completely fulfil his 
wishes, unless it place these means within his reach. 

The theory of these associations, that theory of universal 
utility, is what has sometimes been designated as the social 
science; sometimes denoted by the name of the moral and poli- 
tical sciences. 

Considered in its full extension, moral science embraces all 
that human society can effect for the general advantage, and for 
the moral development of man: considered in its various 
branches, we may number among moral and political sciences, 
constitutional polity, legislation, the science of administration, 
political economy, the science of war and of national defence, 
the science of education, and, lastly, the most profound and im- 
portant of all, that of the moral education of the mature man — 
religion. 

With all these sciences, some of them of a speculative nature, 
history is inseparably connected, as forming the practical part, 
the common register of the phenomena, and experiments of all 
these sciences. We know that the mere name of politics sug- 
gests recollections often bitter or afflicting; and that many can- 
not regard, without a kind of terror, the study of a science 
which, to their imaginations, is characterized much more by 
the animosities it has engendered than by the good it has pro- 
duced. 

Before, however, we declare our aversion for political science, 
let us remember that such an aversion would imply indifference 
to the happiness, the intelligence, and the virtue of the human 
race. 



CHAP. I.] IMPORTANCE OF MORAL SCIENCES. 2^ 

On the one hand, it is necessary to discover how the superior 
intellectual powers and resources of the few can be best em- 
ployed for the improvement and advantage of all; how virtue 
can best be honoured, vice most effectually discouraged, and 
crime prevented 5 how, even in the punishment of crime, the 
greatest sum of good can be secured to society, with the greatest 
economy of evil. On the other hand, it is important to know 
how wealth is created and distributed 5 how the physical com- 
forts which that wealth procures can be diffused over the great- 
est possible number of persons; how it m.ay be made available 
to their enjoyments; — questions intimately affecting not only the 
common weal, but the domestic comfort and prosperity; the hap- 
piness of the interior of every house and of every family. Af- 
ter such a survey of the topics lying within the domain of politi- 
cal science, who will dare to say that he detests it? who will 
dare to say that he despises it? 

But, is this science, important as it must be admitted to be in 
its aim, this science so intimately connected with all that is most 
noble in the destiny of man, is it as unerring as it is important 
and elevated? Does it really lead us to that goal to which it af- 
fects to direct our efforts? Are its principles established in such 
a manner that they can never be shaken? We must confess that 
this is very far from being the case. Social science is divided 
into a great number of branches, each of which amply suffices to 
occupy the life of the most studious man. But there is not one 
of these branches in which rival sects have not sprung up; in 
which they do not contest the first principles on which all their 
doctrines are founded. In speculative politics, liberals and ser- 
viles dispute the fundamental basis of society. In legislation, 
the schools of law have not been less opposed to each other; the 
one always looks to what has been, the other, to what ought to 
be; and, in the countries which have adopted the Roman law, as 
well as in those which assume custom as the ground-work of 
their legislation, these two parties are in open hostility. In po- 
litical economy, contradictory doctrines are maintained with 
equal warmth as to the very basis of the science; and the two 
contending parties are not yet got beyond the question, whether 
the increase of production or of population, be always a good, or 
whether they be sometimes an evil. In the theory of education, 
all the means of diffusing instruction, nay, the advantage of in- 
struction itself, are still disputed points; and there are still per- 



24 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, [cHAP. I. 

sons to toe found, wlio recommend ignorance as the surest guardian 
of the virtue and the happiness of the mass of mankind. The 
most sublime of social sciences, the most beneficent (when it at- 
tains its end,) — religion, is also the most fruitful of controversy 
and debate; and the hostile sects too often transform a bond of 
peace and love into a weapon of aggression and hostility. Ne- 
ver, perhaps, were principles more continually and warmly ap- 
pealed to, in all the social sciences, than in this age; never were 
principles more misunderstood; never was it more impossible to 
enounce a single one with the hope of its obtaining universal 
assent. 

This is not the case with regard to the other subjects of our 
knowledge; physical facts, and the first principles which are de- 
duced from them, are universally established and recognised. In 
what are called the natural sciences, we proceed from proof to 
proof; and if some long admitted explanatory tlieory is sometimes 
contested, the greater part of the discoveries in the field of phy- 
sics are not the less safe from all controversy. In fact, in the 
moral sciences, our doubts are far less directed against the forms 
of argumentation, than against the facts from which w^e affect to 
draw our conclusions. Among these facts there is scarcely one 
sufficiently firmly established to serve as a ground-work for prin- 
ciples. This is easily accounted for, if we consider, that in the 
physical sciences the facts are scientific experiments made with 
a definite purpose, and circumscribed by that purpose: whereas, 
in the moral and political sciences, the facts are the independent 
and infinitely varied actions of human beings. 

Ought we, however, to suffer ourselves to be utterly discou- 
raged by the afflicting uncertainty which hangs about every part 
©f moral and political science? Ought we, because truth has 
not yet been demonstrated, to renounce the search after it? 
Ought we to abandon all hope of finding it? Were we even to 
wish it, we could not. These sciences are of such daily applica- 
tion to the events and objects of life, that we cannot set a step 
without recurring to their aid. We may renounce the search 
after speculative truth, but we cannot cease to act. Since, how- 
ever, every one of our actions reacts on our fellow men, every 
one ought to be regulated by the grand laws of human associa- 
tion — by those very moral and political sciences which some per- 
sons affect to despise. 

When the astronomers of antiquity placed the earth in the 



CHAP. I.] IMPORTANCE OF MORAL SCIENCES. 25 

centre of the universe, and made the sun rise and the firmament 
revolve around it, their error could only extend to paper spheres^ 
the celestial bodies moved on their glorious course, undisturbed 
bj the systems of Ptolemy or of Tycho Brahe. Galileo himself, 
when compelled by the holy office to abjure his sublime theory, 
could not help exclaiming, ** Eppur^ si muoveP^ The inquisi- 
tion might stop the progress of the human mind, but could not 
arrest the revolution of the earth. But even were the study of 
the moral and political sciences utterly prohibited, their practice 
could not be suspended for a single moment. There are nations 
in which the theory of government has never formed a subject of 
reflection or of discussion; but have they therefore found it pos- 
sible to dispense with all government? No: they have adopted 
at random some one of the systems which they ought to have 
chosen after mature deliberation. Whether in Morocco or in 
Athens, in Venice or in Uri, at Constantinople or at London, 
men have, doubtless, always desired that their governments 
should facilitate their way to virtue and to happiness. All have 
the same end in view, and all act. Must they act without re- 
gard to this end.^ Must they walk without endeavouring to as- 
certain whether they advance or recede? It is impossible to 
propose to any sovereign, or to any council, measures, whether 
political, military, administrative, financial, or religious, from 
which good or evil will not result to masses of men; which, con- 
sequently, ought not to be judged in accordance with social 
science. Determinations the most multifold, the most important, 
must be made in one direction or another; — is it necessary they 
should always be made blindfold? And if we prefer what we 
have, if we resolve to stop where we are, that also is just as 
much choice as the contrary line of action. Must we then al- 
ways choose without knowing why we choose? The social 
sciences are obscure — let us then seek to throw light upon them : 
they are uncertain — let us endeavour to fix them: they are spe- 
culative — let us try to establish them on experience. This is 
our duty as men — the law which ought to regulate all our con- 
duct — ^the principle of the good or the evil we may do: indiffe- 
rence on such questions is a crime. 

In order to carry the social sciences to their utmost extent, it 
is unquestionably necessary to divide them; to direct the whole 
force of a speculative mind to one single branch, as the only 
means of pushing the knowledge of details and the concatena- 



26 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. £cHAP. I. 

tion or sequence of principles, as far as human infirmity will 
permit. A man who sincerely desires the advancement of the 
science to which he mainly addicts himself, must content himself 
with excellence in that science 5 — be it the science of govern- 
ment, of jurisprudence, of political economy, of morals, or of 
education. But since all men are subject to the operation of the 
social sciences; since all, in turn, exercise some influence over 
their fellow men; since all judge and are judged, it is of impor- 
tance that all should arrive at certain general results: it is of 
importance that all should understand and appreciate the conse- 
quences of human institutions and human actions. These con- 
sequences are to be found in history. 

History is the general storehouse of the experiments which 
have been made in all the social sciences. Unquestionably, the 
physical sciences — chemistry, agriculture, medicine, are experi- 
mental; so are legislation, political economy, finance, war, edu- 
cation, religion. Experience alone can teach us how far what 
has been invented to serve, to unite, to defend, to enlighten hu- 
man society, to raise the moral dignity of man, or to augment his 
enjoyments, has attained its end, or has produced a contrary 
effect. 

But there remains an important difference. In the physical 
sciences we make experiments; in the moral and political, we can 
only wait and watch for them. We must take them such as they 
have been furnished to us by past ages; we can neither choose 
nor direct them; for an abortive experiment involves destruction 
to the virtue and the happiness of our fellow men; and not of a 
few individuals only, but of thousands or millions of men. We 
know of but one example of a project for the advancement of 
political science by means of experiments, undertaken with the 
express aim, not of the interests of the governed, but of the in- 
struction of the governors. 

About the year 260 of the Christian era, the emperor Gallie- 
nus, one of those in the long line of Caesars, who, perhaps, by 
his indolence and his levity, contributed the most to the ruin of 
the Roman empire, took it into his head that he was a philoso- 
pher; and of course found the high opinion he had formed of 
his taste and aptitude for science amply confirmed by the testi- 
mony of his courtiers: he accordingly resolved to select certain 
cities of the empire as experimental communities, to be submit- 
ted to the various forms of government and polity invented by 



CHAP* I.] VALUE OF HISTORY. 9.7 

philosophers, with a view to the increase of the sum of human 
happiness. In one, the philosopher Plotinus was commissioned 
to organize a republic on Plato's model. Meanwhile the barba- 
rians advanced; the thoughtless Gallienus opposed no resistance; 
and they successively devastated all the countries in which the 
experimental cities were to be founded. Thus vanished this im- 
perial dream. 

Unquestionably, no man has a right thus to make human be- 
ings the subject of experiment; yet a Roman emperor might be 
nearly sure that any theory of any philosopher would be better 
than the practice of his pretorian prefects, or his governors; and 
we have reason to regret that Gallienus's singular project was 
abandoned. But for all, save a Roman emperor, the experimen- 
tal study of the social sciences can be made in the past alone; 
there, the results of all institutions stand disclosed before us, 
though, unhappily, so complicated, so embarrassed in each other, 
that neither causes nor effects present themselves distinctly to our 
eyes. Generally, they are severed by a long interval of time; 
we must look back several generations for the origin of the opi- 
nions, the passions, the weaknesses, the consequences of which 
become manifest after the lapse of ages. 

Often, too, these long-existing causes have been inadequately 
observed, and many are veiled in darkness which it is absolutely 
impossible to penetrate. But the main source of the confusion 
and uncertainty which hang around moral or political science is, 
that several causes always concur to produce one effect; that, 
frequently, it is even necessary to seek in another branch of po- 
litical science the origin of a phenomenon which presents itself 
to us in the one which presently engages our attention. We are 
struck by the tactics of the Romans; but perhaps it is rather to 
the education they received from their earliest infancy, than to- 
the perfection of military science, that we ought to ascribe their 
success in war. We wish to adopt the English trial by juryj 
perhaps it will be found to be devoid of equity or of indepen- 
dence, if it be not supported by the religious opinion of the coun- 
try. We talk of the fidelity of the Austrian s to their govern- 
ment; perhaps their attachment is not to the government, but to 
the economical laws which are in force among them. We ought 
not, therefore, to be surprised if the social sciences are in a back- 
ward state; if their principles are uncertain; if they do not of- 
fer a single question which has not been the subject of controvcF- 



28 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. I* 

sy. Tliey are sciences of fact, and there is not a single one of 
the facts on which they are founded which some one is not dis- 
posed to deny. They are sciences of observation 5 and how few 
are the accurate or complete observations which have as yet been 
collected for the purposes of induction. We ought rather to be 
surprised that men should hate and insult each other for what 
they understand so imperfectly. There is, perhaps, not one de- 
nomination of a sect, whether in politics, philosophy, or religion, 
which has not, at some time or other, become a term of reproach. 
There has not been one opinion, of the many held on subjects so 
difficult, so complicated, by men who had no other end in view 
than the good of their species, which has not in turn been ana- 
thematized, and the profession of it treated as evidence of dis- 
honesty and vice. Poor apprentices as we are in the theory of 
social existence, how dare we to affirm that the adoption of this 
or that principle proves a corrupt heart, when we cannot even de- 
monstrate that it shows ^n error of judgment? Let us study: 
thus only shall we learn the extent of our ignorance. Let us 
study; and by learning to appreciate the difficulties, we shall 
learn to conceive how they may have given birth to systems the 
most widely opposed. 

History, however profoundly studied, will still, perhaps, leave 
us in doubt as to the rules which ought to regulate our own con- 
duct, or our share in the general conduct of society, of which 
we are members; but it will leave us none as to the boundless 
indulgence we owe to the opinions of other men. When we 
see that science is so complicated; that truth is so far removed 
from us, so shrouded from our ken; that every step in our work 
offers fresh difficulties to our investigation, raises fresh questions 
for solution; when we are not sure of our own footing, how shall 
we pronounce sentence on those who differ from us? 

Our purpose in the following work is not to establish any par- 
ticular system; not to maintain or to demolish any set of opi- 
nions, principles, or institutions; but honestly to demand of the 
past an account of what has existed, and of the causes which 
have combined to bring it into existence. The portion of history 
of which we shall endeavour to give a rapid sketch is, indeed, 
more rich in instructive warnings than in glorious examples. 

In the first two centuries of the Christian era, the known 
world was united under an almost universal monarchy, and 
seemed to have within its reach all the fruits of the highest civi- 



CHAP. I.] PERIOD OF HISTORY TREATED OF. 29 

lizatioii to which antiquity had attained. Commencing our re- 
searches at this period, we shall endeavour to point out the germs 
of destruction which this immense bodj contained within itself. 
We shall then give a brief view of the mighty struggle between 
the barbarians and the Romans, and shall show the empire of the 
West crumbling to pieces under reiterated strokes. The bar- 
barians then endeavoured to reconstruct what they had destroyed. 
The Merovingian Franks, the Saracens, the Carlovingian Franks, 
and the Saxons, laboured in turn at the establishment of a uni- 
versal monarchy. Their efforts contributed still farther to the 
dissolution of the ancient order of society, and buried civiliza- 
tion under the ruins. The empires of Dagobert, of the Khalifs, 
of Charlemagne, and of Otho the Great, fell in succession be- 
fore the end of the tenth century. These great convulsions at 
length destroyed the tendency which mankind seemed to have 
preserved toward the reconstruction of a universal monarchy. 
At the end of the tenth century, human society had resolved it- 
self into its primary elements — associations of citizens in towns 
and cities. We shall take our stand at the year 1000, on the 
dust of the successive empires of antiquity. That is the true 
epoch whence modern history ought to date. 

The period of barbarism and destruction which we design to 
examine is little generally known. The greater number of read- 
ers hasten to turn their eyes from so dark and troubled a picture^ 
nor, through its whole duration, does it afford a single author 
worthy to be placed on the same rank with the great writers of 
antiquity. The confusion of factsj our incurable ignorance con- 
cerning a great number of details, concerning some entire pe- 
riods, concerning many of the causes which gave rise to the most 
important revolutions; the absence of philosophy, often of good 
sense, in those who relate events; the enormous number of crimes 
by which this period is deformed, and the extremity of wretched- 
ness to which the human race was reduced, unquestionably de- 
tract much from the interest which its history might otherwise 
excite. These circumstances ought not, however, to deter us 
from endeavouring to obtain a more accurate knowledge of it. 
Indeed, the period which it is our intention to consider is much 
more nearly allied to our own than that which we are accustomed 
to study with the greatest ardour. It is nearer to us, not only in 
the order of dates, but also in that of interests. We are the 
children of the men whose history and character we are about to 

5 



30 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. I. 

examine: we are not the descendants of the Greeks or of the 
Romans. With them arose the tongues we speak 5 the laws 
which we have obeyed, or whose authority we still acknowledge; 
the opinions, the prejudices, more powerful than laws, before 
which we bow, and which will, perhaps, retain their dominion 
over our latest posterity. The nations and tribes who will pass 
in review before us, professed the Christian religion; but in this 
respect the difference is far more striking than the resemblance. 
The centuries which elapsed from the fourth to the tenth are 
those in which the church was the most deeply affected by the 
fatal influences of ignorance, of increasing barbarism, and of 
worldly ambition. In them we can hardly trace a vestige of the 
pure religion we now profess. The direction given to the edu- 
cation of youth, the study of a language then expiring and now 
no longer in existence, and of the master-works it contained, date 
from the same epoch; as do also the establishment of various uni- 
versities and schools, which keep alive in Rurope the spirit of 
past ages. Lastly, it was at that period that the states of modern 
Europe, many of which still subsist, were constructed out of the 
ruins of the Roman empire. We are about to watch the birth of 
the nations to which we are bound by the various ties of blood and 
interest. 

The fall of the Roman empire in the West is the first specta- 
cle that presents itself to us, and is pregnant with instruction. 
Nations or tribes which have attained to a like degree of civili- 
zation perceive that a certain kindred subsists between them. 
The life of a private citizen in the time of Constantine or of 
Theodosius has a greater resemblance to our own than that of 
our barbarous ancestors of Germany, or than that of those vir- 
tuous and austere citizens of the republics of Greece and Italy, 
whose works we admire, but of whose manners we have a very 
imperfect knowledge. It is only by acquiring an accurate con- 
ception of the resemblance and the difference between the orga- 
nization of the empire and that of modern Europe, that we can 
venture to foretell whether the calamities by which the former 
was destroyed, menace us with ruin. 

The mere name of the Roman empire calls up in our minds 
every image of grandeur, power, and magnificence. By a very 
natural confusion of ideas, we bring together the most remote, 
and often dissimilar times, to concentrate around it a halo of 
splendour and glory. The Roman republic had produced men 



CHAP. I.] BOUNDARIES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 31 

who, in moral dignity and force, were, perhaps, never surpassed 
on earth. They had transmitted their names, if not their vir- 
tues, to their descendants^ and even to the very close of the em- 
pire, the men who, sunk in slavery and baseness, still called 
themselves Roman citizens, seemed to live in the midst of their 
shades, and to be encompassed by the atmosphere of their glory. 
The laws had changed their spirit; but the changes had been 
slow, and scarcely perceptible to the people: the manners were 
no longer the same; but the memory of the antique virtue of 
Rome still survived. The literature had been preserved with the 
language; and it established a community of opinions, of emo- 
tions, of prejudices, between the Romans of the time of Clau- 
dian and the contemporaries of Virgil. The magistrates and offi- 
cers of the state had, generally speaking, preserved their ancient 
names and insignia, although their power had jfled. And nine 
hundred years after the institution of the consulates, the people 
of Rome still respected the fasces of the lictors, who preceded 
the consul, habited in the purple of his office. 

From the time of Augustus to that of Constantine the world 
of Rome was bounded by nearly the same frontiers. The god 
Terminus had not yet learned to recede, and still guarded the 
aneient boundaries, as in the days of the republic. To this there 
was but one exception. Dacia, conquered by Trajan, lying to 
the north of the Danube, and without the natural limits of the 
empire, was abandoned, after being held for a century and a 
half. But the aggressive warfare which the Romans of the first 
century were continually pushing beyond their frontiers, was, in 
the fourth, almost invariably retaliated upon them within their 
own territory by the barbarians whom they had formerly at- 
tacked. The emperors could no longer defend the provinces 
which they still affected to rule; and they frequently saw, with- 
out regret, valiant enemies become their guests, and occupy the 
desert regions of their empire. 

This fixedness of the boundaries of the territory subject to 
Rome, was in part to be ascribed to the sagacity with which, at 
the period of her highest power, her leaders had voluntarily 
stopped short in the career of conquest, at the point where they 
found the best military frontier. Great rivers, which afford little 
obvStacle to the armies of civilized nations, are generally a bar- 
rier against the incursions of barbarians; and great rivers, the 
sea, mountains, deserts, formed, in fact, natural frontiers to this 
immense empire. 



32 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. tcHAP. I. 

According to a vague calculation, it has been asserted that the 
Roman territory measured six hundred leagues from north to 
south, upwards of a thousand from east to west, and extended 
over a surface of a hundred and eighty thousand square leagues. 
But the idea conveyed by numbers is too abstract to leave any 
distinct picture on the mind. We shall understand more clear- 
ly the immense extent of its possessions in the richest and most 
fertile countries in the world, by following the line of its fron- 
tiers. On the north, the empire was bounded by the wall of the 
Caledonians or Picts, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Black Sea. 
The Picts' wall, which transected Scotland at its narrowest point, 
left the Romans in possession of the Lowlands of that country, 
and of the whole of England. The Rhine and the Danube, which 
rise at nearly the same point, and take their course, the one to 
the west, the other to the east, separated barbaric from civilized 
Europe. The Rhine formed the frontier of Gaul, which then 
comprised Helvetia and Belgium. The Danube covered the two 
great peninsulas of Italy and Illyricum. It divided countries, 
some of which are now regarded as Germanic, others as vSlavo- 
nic. On its right bank the Romans possessed Rhaetia, Noricum, 
Pannonia, and Moesia^ which answer pretty nearly to Suabia, 
Bavaria, part of Austria and of Hungary, and Bulgaria. The 
narrow space between the sources of the Danube and the Rhine, 
above Basel, was defended by a line of fortifications. The Black 
Sea protected Asia Minor. To the north aad east, a few Greek 
colonies preserved a doubtful sort of independence, under the 
protection of the empire. A Greek prince reigned at Caflfa, on 
the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Greek colonies in the countries of 
Lazica or Colchis were alternately subject or tributary. The 
Romans possessed the whole southern bank of the Black Sea, 
from the mouths of the Danube to Trebisond. 

On the east, the empire was bounded by the mountains of Ar- 
menia, by a part of the course of the Euphrates, and by the de- 
serts of Arabia. One of the loftiest mountain-ranges of the 
globe, the Caucasian, stretching from the Black Sea to the Cas- 
pian, touching Thibet at one extremity, and at the other the 
mountains of the centre of Asia Minor, separated the Scythians 
of Upper Asia from the Persians and the Romans. The wildest 
part of these mountains belonged to the Iberians, who maintained 
their independence. The part the most susceptible of cultiva- 
tion was inhabited by the Armenians, who submitted alternately 
to the yoke of the Romans, the Parthians, and the Persians, but 



CHAP. I.] BOUNDARIES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 33 

as tributaries rather than as subjects. The Tigris and the Eu- 
phrates, which rise in the Armenian mountains, and empty them- 
selves into the Persian Gulf, flowed through the plains of Meso- 
potamia. Along the whole of this part of the eastern boundary, 
down to the sandy deserts which, farther to the south, divide the 
banks of the Euphrates from the fertile hills of Syria, the fron- 
tiers of the empire had not been traced by the hand of nature 5 
and we accordingly see the two great monarchies of the Romans 
and of the Parthians, or their successors, the Persians, alternate- 
ly wresting from each other several of the provinces of Armenia 
or of Mesopotamia. The deserts of Arabia formed the defence 
of Syria along a line of two hundred leagues, while the Red Sea 
bounded Egypt. 

To the south, the deserts of Libya and Zahara, to the west, 
the Atlantic Ocean, were at once the limits of the Roman em- 
pire and of the habitable globe. 

Having traced the frontier line of the empire, we will pause 
for a moment over the catalogue of the provinces of which it con- 
sisted. About the year 292, Diocletian had divided it into four 
pretorian prefectures, with a view to provide better for its de- 
fence, by giving it four heads or leaders. These prefectures 
were Gaul, lUyricum, Italy, and the East. The residence of the 
prefect of Gaul was at Treves. He had under his orders the 
three vicars of the Gallic provinces, Spain, and Britain. The 
former were divided, according to the ancient language of the 
inhabitants, into Narbonese, Aquitanian, Celtic, Belgic, and 
Germanic Gaul. Spain was divided into three provinces, Lusi- 
tania, Bsetica, and Tarraconia. Lastly, Britain comprehended 
the whole island, as far north as the Friths of Forth and Clyde. 

The lUyrian prefecture consisted of that immense triangle of 
which the Danube is the base, and the Adriatic and the jEgean 
and Euxine seas the two sides. It comprehended nearly the 
whole existing empire of Austria, and the whole of Turkey in 
Europe. It was divided into the provinces of Rhastia, Noricum, 
and Pannonia; Dalmatia, Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, and 
Greece. The prefect resided at Sirmium, not far from Bel- 
grade and from the Danube, or at Thessalonica. 

The prefecture of Italy included, besides that province whence 
the conquerors of the world had sprung, the whole of Africa, 
from the western frontiers of Egypt to the present empire of Mo- 
focco. The provinces bore the names of Libya, Africa, Numi- 



34 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. I. 

dia, Caesarian, Mauritania, and Tingitanian Mauritania. Rome 
and Milan were alternately the residence of the prefect of Italy, 
but Carthage was the capital of all the African provinces. It 
equalled Rome in population as well as in magnificence 5 and in 
the time of their prosperity, the African provinces alone were 
more than equal to three times the territory of France. 

The prefecture of the East, bounded by the Black Sea, the 
kingdom of Persia, and the Desert, was yet more extensive, 
more wealthy, and more populous than either of the others. It 
contained the provinces of Asia Minor, Bithynia, and Pontus; 
Cilicia, Syria, Plioenicia, and Palestine; Egypt, with a part of 
Colchis, of Armenia, of Mesopotamia, and of Arabia. The re- 
sidence of the prefect was at Antioch, but several other capitals, 
particularly Alexandria, in Egypt, almost rivalled that city in 
population and in wealth. 

The imagination is confounded by this enumeration of the 
provinces of Rome; by the comparison of them with any existing 
empires; and our astonishment is heightened when we call to 
mind the vast and splendid cities by which each of these pro- 
vinces was adorned; cities, several of which equalled, if they 
did not surpass, our largest capitals in population and in opu- 
lence; cities such as Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, within 
whose walls a whole nation seemed enclosed. The Gallic pro- 
vinces alone numbered one hundred and fifteen towns, distin- 
guished by the name of cities. The ruins of some are yet stand- 
ing, and surpass all those of modern times in magnificence. 

The aspect of these ruins still excites our admiration, even 
when we meet with them in provinces where they are not asso- 
ciated with any glorious recollections. At Nismes we behold 
the Maison carree, the Arenge, the Pont de Gard, with reveren- 
tial emotion. With the same feelings, we visit the remains of 
Roman grandeur at Aries and Narbonne: yet what do we find 
there, except models of art? No great historical recollections 
are attached to them: these noble edifices were raised at a time 
when Rome had lost its liberty, its virtues, and its^lory. When 
we succeed in fixing the date of their construction, we find it 
during the reigns of emperors whose names have been handed 
down to the execration of all successive generations. 

Nevertheless, these monuments, even in the most remote pro- 
vinces, the most obscure cities, still bear the antique Roman 
stamp-^the stamp of vastness and magnificence. Moral habits 



CHAP. I.] ARCHITECTURE OF ANCIENT ROME. 35 

and impressions are sometimes perpetuated in works of art, even 
after they are obliterated from the soul of the artist. Even at 
the latest periods of the decline of the empire, the Roman artist 
lived, surrounded by the time-hallowed witnesses of the past, 
which kept him in the right pathj he felt himself compelled to 
work for eternity. He continued to impress on his creations 
that character of power and durability, which give them a pre- 
eminence over all that have succeeded them. The imposing ar- 
chitecture of Rome has a strength and a grandeur which remind 
us of that of Upper Egypt. It differs from that, however, in its 
object: the Egyptians laboured only for their gods — the Romans, 
even during the period of their enslavement, worked mainly for 
the people. All their great edifices were evidently intended for 
the enjoyment of all. In the times of the republic, the chief ob- 
ject was the public utility, to which the aqueducts and magnifi- 
cent roads of that period were destined to contribute. In the 
days of the empire, it was rather the public pleasure that was 
consulted: the result was, circuses and theatres. Even in the 
temples, the Egyptian architect seems to have thought only of 
the presence of the Deity — the Roman, of the adoration of the 
people. 

In the midst of all this magnificence, the empire, whose fall 
we are about to contemplate, was lingering in its fourth century 
of incurable decay. The north poured down upon it her flood 
of warriors. From the extremity of Scandinavia to the frontiers 
of China, nation after nation appeared, the new pressing upon 
the older- settled, crushing it, and marking its onward passage 
with blood and devastation. The calamities which afflicted the 
human race at that period exceed, in extent of desolation, in 
number of victims, in intensity of suiFering, all that has ever 
been presented to our affrighted imagination. We dare not cal- 
culate the millions upon millions of human beings who perished 
before the downfal of the Roman empire was accomplishedc^ 
Yet its ruin was not caused by the barbarians: it had long been 
corroded by an internal ulcer. Various causes had, doubtless, 
contributed to destroy, among the subjects of the Caesars, the pa- 
triotism of the people, the military virtues, the opulence of the 
provinces, and the means of resistance. But we shall now con- 
fine ourselves to an endeavour to elucidate those which arose 
from the state of the population; since upon that must repose 
every system of national defence. 

That sentiment so pure, so elevated, that public virtue whicb 



36 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. fcHAP. t^ 

sometimes soars to the highest pitch of heroism, and renders the 
citizen capable of the most noble sacrifices^ that patriotism 
which had long been the glory and the power of Rome, found no 
food in the empire of the world. An edict of Caracalla (a. d. 
211-217) had rendered common to all the inhabitants of the em- 
pire, not only the prerogatives, but the titles and the duties, of a 
Roman citizen. Thus the Gaul and the Briton were nominally 
the fellow-citizens of the Mauritanian and the Syrian; the Greek 
and the Egyptian, of the Spaniard and the Hun. It is evident, 
however, that the more such a fagot is enlarged, the looser is 
the tie that binds it. What glory or distinction could attach to 
a prerogative become so common? What recollections could be 
awakened by the name of country? a name no longer endeared 
by any local image, by any association of ideas, by any partici- 
pation in all that had thrown radiance and glory around the so- 
cial body? 

Thus national recollections, national feelings, were obliterated 
in imperial Rome. They were feebly replaced by two distinc- 
tions between the inhabitants of the empire; that of language, 
and that of rank. 

Language is the most powerful symbol to a nation of its own 
unity; it is blended with every association of the mind; it lends 
its colour to every feeling and to every thought; it forms an indi- 
visible part of our memory, of all that has made us love life, of all 
that has taught us to know happiness. When it reveals to us a 
fellow-countryman in the midst of a strange people, it makes our 
heart beat with all the emotions of home and fatherland. But, 
so far from serving as a bond of union between the citizens of 
the Roman empire, language only served to sever them. A great 
division between the Greek and the Latin soon placed the empires 
of the East and of the West in opposition. These two tongues, 
which had already shone in the zenith of their literary glory, 
had been adopted by the governments, by the wealthy classes, 
by all who pretended to education, and by most of the citizens 
of the great towns. Latin was spoken in the Gallic prefecture, 
in Africa, Italy, and half of the Illyrian prefecture, and along 
the Danube; Greek, in all the southern portion of the Illyrian 
prefecture, and throughout the prefecture of the East. 

But the great mass of the royal population, except in spots 
cultivated exclusively by slaves brought from a distance, had 
preserved its provincial language. Thus, Celtic was spoken 
throughout Amorica and the island of Britain; Illyrian, in the 



CHAP. I.] POPULATION OF THE EMPIRE. 37 

greater part of Illjricum; Syrian, Coptic, Armenian, in the se- 
veral provinces whence these languages had taken their names. 
Where the people were the most enslaved and oppressed, they 
made the greatest efforts to learn the language of their masters; 
the latter, on the contrary, had to make the advances, where the 
people were the most numerous and strong. Throughout the 
empire, however, there was a continual shifting of the popula- 
■ tion, from the immense traffic in slaves, from the military ser- 
vice, and from the pursuit of civil offices. Hence, every pro- 
vince presented, in the lower classes, the strangest mixture of 
various patois and dialects. Thus, in Gaul, we know that, to- 
wards the end of the fifth century, Saxon was spoken at Bayeux, 
Tartarian in the district of Tifauge in Poitou, Gaelic at Vannes, 
Alan at Orleans, Frankic at Tournai, and Gothic at Tours; and 
every century affords a fresh combination. 

But it is more especially in the condition of individuals, that 
we must seek the causes of the extreme weakness of the Roman 
empire. We may distinguish six classes of inhabitants. First, 
we shall find senatorial families, proprietors of immense territo- 
ries and immense wealth, who had successively encroached on 
the possessions of all the smaller landed proprietors. Secondly, 
the inhabitants of large towns, a mixture of artisans and freed 
slaves, who lived on the luxury of the rich, and shared in their 
corruption; who made themselves formidable to the government 
by their revolts, — -never to the enemy by their valour in the field. 
The inhabitants of small towns, poor, despised, and oppressed. 
The husbandmen and the slaves, who tilled the fields. Lastly, 
a sort of banditti, who, as a means of escaping from oppression, 
betook themselves to the woods, and lived a life of brigandage. 

The higher classes of a nation may impress upon the govern- 
ment a character of wisdom and virtue, if themselves are wise 
and virtuous; but they cannot give it strength, for strength must 
always come from the mass. But, in imperial Rome, this mass, 
so varied in its language, its manners, its religion, its habits; so 
savage in the midst of civilization; so oppressed and brutified, 
was scarcely perceived by those v4io lived on its toils: it is hard- 
ly mentioned by historians; it pined in wretchedness; it perished 
and disappeared in some provinces, while no one condescended 
to notice its extinction; and it is only by a series of comparisons 
that we can discover its fate. In the present state of Europe, 
the class of husbandmen — those who live by the manual labour 

6 



38 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. I. 

of agriculture, — ^forms four-fifths of the whole population, Eug- 
land alone excepted. We may conclude that, in the Roman 
empire, the agricultural population was proportionally larger, 
since manufactures and commerce were in a less advanced state 
than with us. But, whatever were their numbers, they formed 
no part of the nation. They were regarded as scarcely superior 
to the domestic animals whose labours they shared. The higher 
classes would have dreaded to hear them pronounce the name of 
country: dreaded to call forth their moral or intellectual facul- 
ties^ above all, that courage which they might have turned against 
their oppressors. The peasantry were rigorously deprived of 
arms, and were incapacitated from contributing to the defence of 
their country, or from opposing resistance to any enemy, foreign 
or domestic. 

The rural population of the empire was divided into tv/o 
classes, free coloni and slaves j differing, however, far more in 
name than in any positive rights. The former cultivated the 
earth for certain fixed wages, generally paid in kind^ but, as they 
were severed from their masters by an impassable distance; as 
they were immediately dependent on some favourite slave or free- 
man 5 as their complaints were unheard, and the law afforded 
them no security, their condition became more and more deplo- 
rable j the payment exacted from them more and more ruinous: 
and if, rendered desperate by misery, they abandoned their fields, 
their dwellings, their family, and fled to take refuge under the 
protection of some other proprietor, the constitutions of the em- 
perors had provided a summary process by which they could be 
reclaimed, and seized wherever they were found. Such was the 
condition of the free cultivators of the soil. 

The slaves were again subdivided into two classes; those who 
were born on their master's estate, — and who, having, conse- 
quently, no other place of abode, no other home or country, in- 
spired a larger share of confidence, — and those who had been 
purchased. The former lived in huts, in the farm -buildings or 
homesteads, under the eyes of their inspector or bailiff, nearly 
like the negroes on a West India estate. But, as their numbers 
were continually decreasing from bad treatment, from the ava- 
rice of their superiors, from misery and despair, a continual and 
active trade was carried on throughout the empire to recruit 
them from among the prisoners of war. The victories of the 
Roman arms,— frequently, also, the conflicts of the barbarians 



CHAP. I.] DESTRUCTION OF SMALL PROPRIETORS. S9 

among each other, or the punishments inflicted by the emperors 
or their lieutenants on revolted cities or provinces, the whole po- 
pulation of which was sold under the spear of the praetor, — kept 
the market constantly supplied with slaves^ but at the expense 
of all that would have been the most valuable part of the popu- 
lation. These wretched beings worked almost constantly with 
chains on their feet: they were worn down with fatigue, in order 
to crush their spirit, and were shut up nightly in subterraneous 
holes. 

The frightful sufferings of so large a portion of the population, 
its bitter hatred against its oppressors, produced their natural 
consequences 5 continual servile insurrections, plots, assassina.- 
tions, and poisonings. In vain did a sanguinary law condemn to 
death all the slaves of a master who had been assassinated; ven- 
geance and despair multiplied crime and violence. Those who 
had already satisfied their revenge, those who had failed in their 
attempt to do so, but over whose head suspicion hung, fled to the 
forests and lived by rapine and plunder. In Gaul and Spain 
they were called Bagaudae, in Asia Minor they were confounded 
with the Isauri; in Africa with the Gsetuli, who pursued the 
same course of life. Their numbers were so considerable, that 
their attacks frequently assumed the character of civil war, ra- 
ther than of the violences of a band of robbers. They were like 
the Marroons of the West India Islands. By their irruptions 
they aggravated the miseries of those who were lately their com- 
panions in misfortune. Whole districts, whole provinces, were 
successively abandoned by the cultivators, and forest and heath 
usurped the place of corn and pasture. 

The wealthy senator sometimes obtained compensation for his 
losses, or the aid of the authorities in defence of his property; 
but the small land-owner, who cultivated his own field, could 
not escape amid so much violence and outrage. His fortune and 
his life were in continual danger. He hastened, therefore, to 
get rid of his patrimony at any price, whenever he could find an 
opulent neighbour willing to buy it; nay, he frequently aban- 
doned it without any compensation. Often he was driven from it 
by fiscal exactions, and the overwhelming weight of the public 
charges. Thus, the whole of this independent class, among whom 
love of country exists in peculiar force and intensity, whose vigo- 
rous arm is best able to defend the soil it tills, was soon entirely 
extirpated. The number of proprietors diminished to such a de- 



40 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. I. 

gree, that an opulent man, a man of senatorial family, had often 
a distance of ten leagues to traverse before he could reach the 
habitation of a neighbour and equal. Some of them, proprietors 
of whole provinces, were accordingly already regarded as petty 
sovereigns. 

In the midst of this general desolation, the existence of large 
cities is a phenomenon not easily explained 5 but we find the 
same extraordinary state of things in our own times, in Barbary, 
Turkey, throughout the Eastj — ^wherever, in short, despotism 
crushes isolated man, and where he can only find safety from out- 
rage by losing himself in a crowd. These great cities were, in 
a great m.easure, peopled by artisans, who were subjected to a 
very rigorous yoke; and by freed-men and slaves; but it is to be 
remembered, that they also contained a greater number of per- 
sons who were satisfied with bare necessaries, provided they 
could pass their time in utter indolence, than are to be found in 
our days. The whole of this population was, like the peasantry, 
disarmed; was equally deprived of the feeling of country; was 
rendered equally fearful of the enemy; equally incapable of self- 
defence. But, as it was congregated into a mass, it commanded 
some respect from those in power. In all the cities of the first 
class, there were gratuitous distributions of provisions, and gra- 
tuitous games, chariot races, and theatrical exhibitions. The le- 
vity, the love of pleasure, the forgetfulness of the future, which 
have always characterized the populace of large cities, clung to 
the provincial Romans through all the final calamities of the em- 
pire. Treves, the capital of the Gallic prefecture, was not the 
only city which was surprised and pillaged by th"e barbarians, 
while its citizens, crowned with chaplets, were rapturously ap- 
plauding the games of the circus. 

Such was the interior of the empire at the beginning of the 
fourth century; such was the population called upon to resist the 
universal invasion of the barbarians, who often left them no other 
choice than that of dying with arms in their hands, or dying like 
slaves and cowards. And the descendants of those haughty and 
daring Romans, the heirs of such high renown, acquired by so 
many virtues, had been so enfeebled, so debased and degraded 
by the tyranny to wliich they had been subjected, that, when this 
alternative was offered them, they constantly preferred the death 
of cowards and of slaves. 



( 41 ) 



CHAPTER II. 



Three first Centuries of the Roman Empire. — From the Battle of Actium to 
the Reign of Constantine. — Uninteri'upted Progress of Decay. — These 
three Centuries divided into four Periods: 1. of the JuUan Race; 2. of the 
Flavian; 3. of the Soldiers of Fortune; 4. of the Colleagues, or Co-em- 
perors. — State of Rome under the Julian Family. — Limits of the Empire 
nearly unchanged. — Military Force.' — Arts. — Literature. — Degraded State 
of the People. — ^Virtuous Emperors of the Flavian Race. — Opulence and 
Splendour of the Provincial Cities. — Increasing Disproportion between 
the Wealth of the few and the Misery of the mass. — Rapid Diminution of 
Population. — Difficulty of recruiting the Armies. — Death of Commodus. 
— Commencement of third Period. — Tyranny and Rapacity of the Praeto- 
rians. — Civil Wars. — Assassinations. — Successful Invasion of Barbarians. — 
Judicious Military Elections. — Diocletian. — Division of the Empire by him 
into four Prefectures, governed by two Augusti and two Caesars. 

In the preceding chapter we have endeavoured to show what was 
the condition, what were the internal circumstances, of the Ro- 
man empire at the beginning of the fourth century j but, in order 
to the understanding of the events which followed, it will be ne- 
cessary briefly to recall to the memory of our readers by what 
steps, by what series of revolutions, the empire reached that 
point of decline of which we have tried to convey some idea. 
The space assigned to this work will render it necessary to con- 
dense into one chapter three centuries and a half of the exist- 
ence of the civilized worlds three centuries and a half prolific in 
great events and in great men, many of whom have, probably, 
already a powerful hold on the imagination of our readers. In a 
work professedly treating of the middle ages, it is impossible to 
trace the long decay of the empire which preceded the reign of 
Constantine, since that reign must be the point from which we 
start. Perhaps, however, by strongly marking the epochs of this 
long history, by classifying the events and the princes which give 
it its character and its direction, by thus reviving the recollec- 
tions which are associated in the minds of our readers with their 
earlier studies, we may succeed in enabling them to embrace 
with a glance the period which we must leave behind us, but 
which exercised a powerful influence over that which we are 
about to follow out in greater detail. 

The power of an individual had been definitively established 



42 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, [cHAP. II. 

over the Roman world by the victory which Octavius, better 
known under the name of Augustus, obtained over Marc Antho- 
ny at Actium, on the second of September in the year 723 of 
Rome — thirty years before the birth of Christ. Constantine the 
Great, with whom we shall begin our narrative, was invested 
with the purple in Gaul, a. d. 306; but he was not acknowledged 
by the whole empire until the year 323 — three hundred and fifty- 
three years after the battle of Actium. 

During this long space of time, the feebleness and exhaustion 
of the Roman empire made gradual and uninterrupted progress. 
This empire, which had threatened the whole earth with subju- 
gation, which had united civilization to extent, wealth to milita- 
ry virtue, talents to strength, advanced towards its downfal, but 
with unequal steps; its infirmities were not always the same, and 
the calamities wliich threatened it chang-ed their character and 
aspect. It suffered alternately from the two extremes of the ex- 
cess and the dissolution of power: it paid the penalty even of its 
prosperity. Without minutely following the history of its do- 
mestic tyrannies, or its foreign wars, let us endeavour to trace 
this change in its character in the series of events. 

These three centuries and a half may be divided into four pe- 
riods, each of which had its peculiar vices, its characteristic 
weaknesses; each of which contributed, though in a different man- 
ner, to the grand work of destruction which was going on. We 
shall designate them after the names or the characters of the 
chiefs of the empire; since the whole power of Rome was then 
lodged in the hands of those chiefs, and they were in fact the sole 
representatives of that republic whose name still continued to be 
vainly invoked. The first period is that of the reign of the Ju- 
lian family, from the year 30 before Christ, to the year 68 after 
liis nativity. The second is marked by the reign of the Flavian 
family, which, by its own influence, and afterwards by adoption, 
kept possession of the throne from the year 69 to 192. The 
third is that of the soldiers of fortune, who alternately wrested 
the sceptre from each other's hands, from the year 192 to the year 
284. The fourth is that of the colleagues who divided the so- 
vereignty, without dissolving the unity of the empire, from the 
year 284 to the year 323. 

The Julian family is that of the dictator C^sar; his name was 
transmitted, by adoption, out of the direct line, but always with- 
in the circle of his kindred, to the five first heads of the Roman 



CHAP, II.] MILITARY FORCE. 43 

empire? Augustus reigned from the year 30 b. c. to the year 14 
of our era? Tiberius, from 14 to 37 a. d.; Caligula, from 37 to 
41? Claudius, from 41 to 54; Nero, from 54 to 68. Their names 
alone, with the exception of the first, concerning whom there 
still exists some diversity of opinion, recall every thing that is 
shameful and perfidious in man, — every thing that is atrocious 
in the abuse of absolute power. Never had the world been as- 
tounded by such a variety and enormity of crime? never had so 
fatal an attack been made on every virtue, every principle, which 
men had been accustomed to hold in reverence. Outraged na- 
ture seemed to deny to these men the power of perpetuating their 
race; not one of them left children? nevertheless, the order of 
succession among them was legitimate, according to the meaning 
now given to that word. The first head of that house had been 
invested with supreme power by the sole depositaries of the na- 
tional authority, the senate and the people of Rome? after him 
the transmission of the sovereignty was always regular, conform- 
able to the laws of inheritance, recognised by all the several bo- 
dies of the state, and was not disputed by any pretender to the 
crown. The adoptive son, occupying in every respect the place 
of the natural son, was admitted, without hesitation or opposition, 
to the place of his father. 

During this period of ninety-eight years, the limits of the Ro- 
man empire remained nearly unchanged, v/ith the sole exception 
of the conquest of Great Britain in the reign of Claudius, Mi- 
litary glory had overthrown the republic and raised up the dicta- 
torship? the attachment of the soldiery to the memory of the 
hero who had led them on to battle, had founded the sovereignty 
of his family? but Augustus and Tiberius, heirs of the greatest 
military power which the world had ever known, distrusted, 
while they caressed, this instrument of their supremacy: they 
owed all their power to the army? they feared only the more ta 
owe their ruin to it. They wanted the selfish, and not the gene- 
rous, passions of the army. They dreaded the virtuous enthusi- 
asm which is easily excited among large bodies of men? they took 
care to economize both the heroism and the victories of their le- 
gions? nor would they give them leaders whose example or whose 
approbation they might prefer to the largesses of their emperors. 
Augustus and Tiberius would not attempt what the Republic 
would have accomplished, — what Charlemagne effected with far 
inferior means, — the conquest and civilization of Germany. 



44 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II, 

They thought they had done enough when they had protected 
their territory with a strong military frontier, against neighbours 
who regarded war as a virtue^ they bequeathed to their succes- 
sors all the dangers of attack and invasion. 

At this epoch, the military force of the Roman empire consist- 
ed of thirty legions. The complement of each, including its 
auxiliaries, levied from among the allies of Rome, was 12,500 
men, among whom were reckoned 6000 men of that admirable 
infantry of the line, so heavily armed, yet so easily disposable, 
which had achieved the conquest of the world: a corps of Ro- 
man cavalry, 726 strong, was attached to it: the rest was com- 
posed of auxiliary troops, and wore the arms of the several coun- 
tries which furnished them. In time of peace, the legions did 
not inhabit towns or fortresses: they occupied intrenched camps 
on the principal frontiers, where no civil occupation was ever 
suflfered to interfere with the great profession of arms; where the 
exercises imposed on the legionary soldier, to fortify his body and 
keep him in full activity and vigour, had always war for their ob- 
ject; and where the severity of discipline was never relaxed. 
Three of these legions were stationed in Britain, south of the Ca- 
ledonian wall; five in Rhenish Gaul; eleven on the Danube, 
from its source in Rhsetia down to its mouth in the Black Sea; 
six in Syria, and two in Cappadocia, for the defence of the Per- 
sian frontier. The pacific provinces of Egypt, Africa, and 
Spain, had each but one legion. Italy and the city of Rome, on 
the tranquillity of which the safety of the emperor depended, 
were kept in awe by a body of 20,000 soldiers, distinguished 
from the rest of the army by higher pay, by the emperor's pecu- 
liar favour, and by immunity for every license. They were 
called the Praetorian Guard; they were encamped without the 
gates of Rome, and never quitted the prsetorium or the residence 
of the emperor. The aggregate of the legions formed an army 
of 375,000 men. Including the praetorians, the entire military 
establishment of the empire, at its greatest power, never exceed- 
ed 400,000 men. 

The domination of the Julian family was disastrous to Rome, 
to the senators, to all men distinguished for opulence, for moral 
elevation, for ambition, or for attachment to the memory and the 
fame of their forefathers; disastrous to all the antique virtues of 
Rome, to all noble sentiments and aspirations, which it crushed 
and stifled for ever. But the provinces, rarely visited by the 



CHAP. II.] STATE OF THE PROVINCES. 45 

emperors, never invaded bj the barbarians, enjoyed all the ad- 
vantages of peace, of an immense commerce, of easy and safe 
communication, of laws generally equal and just. In times of 
which the memory is almost exclusively odious and shameful for 
the capital, the population of the recently acquired provinces— 
of Gaul and Spain, for instance, w^hich had been almost devas- 
tated or reduced to slavery at the time of their conquest — ^rapid- 
ly recovered and increased in strength and numbers. It was at 
this and the subsequent period that most of those stately cities 
which adorned the provinces were built or enlarged^ that the arts 
of Rome and of Greece were borne by commerce to the ends of 
the empire, and that the monuments which still excite our won- 
der, which throw a lustre over spots unconsecrated by any glo- 
rious recollections, bridges, aqueducts, circuses, theatres, were 
undertaken or constructed. The subjects of Rome sought to 
drown all thought of the future^ to forget crimes which did not 
reach themselves^ to sever themselves from a country of whose 
chiefs they could not think without blushing^ to deter their chil- 
dren from entering on any public career, where they would be 
beset by dangers^ and to enjoy the advantages offered them by 
arts, opulence, and leisure. 

Republican sentiments were still cherished by all the men who 
possessed the public confidence and esteem. We find them in 
all their pristine energy in the poet Lucan, in the historian Taci- 
tus, in the jurisconsult Antistius Labeo. The name of republic, 
which had been preserved; the laws and customs of ancient 
Rome, many of which still subsisted, rendered it impossible to 
speak of the past otherwise than with reverence. Nevertheless, 
for a century, during which four execrable men filled the throne, 
one of whom was an idiot, and two madmen, not one important 
battle was fought for the recovery of freedom,- — no revolt, — no 
civil war. The reason for this is, that the love of liberty was 
confined to the higher aristocracy. The senators knew how to 
die with suflicient courage to save themselves from infamy | but 
they could make no resistance. The people of Rome, almost en- 
tirely fed by the largesses of the emperors, continually amused 
and intoxicated by shows and games, looked on the successive 
fall of the heads of the illustrious men they had feared or en- 
vied, as another variety of exhibition: the people of the provinces, 
strangers to the antique liberty, perceived no difference between 
the republic and the empire; the army, confounding fidelity to a 

7 



46 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II. 

standard with the duty of citizens, and blind obedience with pa- 
triotism, attached themselves to the Julian family with implicit 
and unhesitating devotion. The excesses of the fury and frenzy 
of Nero at length brought about its fall; but its power was, even 
then, so firmly established, that it was the attachment of the sol- 
diery to the extinct race of the Julii which enkindled the first 
civil war: they would neither have the republic, nor the emperor 
chosen by the senate. As no law nor usage existed determining 
the succession to the sovereignty, the supreme power was neces- 
sarily the prey of the strongest or the most dexterous. Each 
army wished to invest its own chief with the purple. Galba, 
Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, and other less fortunate pretenders, 
struggled for supremacy; but the habits of subordination were 
still so strong, that, after this storm, which endured scarcely 
eighteen months, every thing returned into its wonted order; and 
the senate, the provinces, the armies, obeyed the conqueror Ves- 
pasian, as they would have obeyed one of Julian blood. 

We have designated the second period of the empire by the 
name of the Flavian family — the family of Vespasiafti. The nine 
emperors who were successively invested with the purple, in the 
space of the 123 years from his accession, were not all, however, 
of Flavian race, even by the rites of adoption, which, in Rome, 
was become a second nature; but the respect of the world for 
the virtues of Flavian Vespasian induced them all to assume his 
name, and most of them showed themselves worthy of such an 
affiliation. 

Vespasian had been invested with the purple at Alexandria, 
on the 1st of July, a. d. 69: he died in 79. His two sons 
reigned in succession after him; Titus, from 79 to 81; Domitian, 
from 81 to 96. The latter, having been assassinated, Nerva, 
then an old man, was raised to the throne by the senate (a. d. 96 
—98.) He adopted Trajan (98—117;) who adopted Adrian 
(117 — 138.) Adrian adopted Antoninus Pius (138 — 161;) who 
adopted Marcus Aurelius (161—180;) and Commodus succeeded 
his father, Marcus Aurelius (180—192.) No period in history 
presents such a succession of good and great men upon any 
throne: two monsters, Domitian and Commodus, interrupt and 
terminate it; the virtues of their fathers could not save them 
from the corrupting effect of an education received at the 
foot of a throne. It is worthy of note, that the natural succession 
gave but one single virtuous man to the empire of the world;— 



CHAP. II.] FLAVIAN RACE. 47 

Titus, surnamed the delight of mankind, whose short reign, how- 
ever, hardly afforded a sufficient trial of his character. All the 
others were called to the throne by a glorious election, sanctioned 
bj the rites of adoption, by which the prince consulted the public 
voice, and voluntarily transmitted his sceptre to the most worthy. 

History throws little light on this period. Abroad, the enter- 
prises of the Romans were confined to some wars against the 
Parthians, which produced no permanent change in the frontiers 
of the two empires; to the wars of Trajan beyond the Danube, 
(a. d. 102 — 107,) in which he conquered Dacia, now Wallachia 
and Transylvania; and to the wars of Marcus Aurelius against 
the Quadi and the Marcomanni, who had succeeded in forming a 
confederation of the whole of Germany, for the purpose of at- 
tacking the Roman empire. 

The pillars of Trajan and of Antonine, which are still stand- 
ing and covered with bas-reliefs, are monuments of these two 
glorious expeditions. At home, the attention of historians was 
exclusively directed to the imperial palace; and they had only to 
commemorate the virtues of the sovereign, and the happiness of 
the subjects. This happiness, the result of universal peace, of 
equal protection, equal security for all, was, doubtless, great, and 
has been often celebrated. One symptom of it was a fresh dawn 
of literature; feeble, indeed, compared with that of the age which 
has lent its glory to the name of Augustus, though it derived all 
its splendour from men formed during the latter years of the re- 
public. The reign of Adrian was peculiarly marked by the flou- 
rishing state of art; those of the Antonines, by great ardour in 
the cultivation of philosophy. Yet in these 123 years, history 
records few acts of public virtue, few noble or distinguished cha- 
racters. 

This was the period at which, more especially, the provincial 
cities attained the highest pitch of opulence, and were adorned 
with the most remarkable edifices. Adrian had a strong taste 
for the arts, and for all the enjoyments of life; he was continual- 
ly travelling through the provinces of his vast empire; he ex- 
cited emulation among the several large cities and the wealthier 
citizens; and he carried to the farthest extremities of the Roman 
dominions that luxury and taste for decoration which, before his 
time, was the exclusive distinction of those magnificent cities 
which seemed the depositories of the civilization of the world. 
But it was during this same period that peace and prosperity 



48 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. II* 

fostered the colossal growth of a few fortunes; of those latifun- 
dia, or vast domains, which, according to Plinj the elder, were 
the destruction of Italy and of the empire. A single proprietor 
gradually became possessed of provinces which had furnished the 
republic with the occasion of decreeing more tlian one triumph 
to its generals. While he amassed wealth so disproportionate to 
the wants of a single man, he cleared all the country he got with- 
in his grasp, of that numerous and respectable class of indepen- 
dent cultivators, hitherto so happy in their mediocrity. Where 
thousands of free citizens had formerly been found ready to de- 
fend the soil they tilled with their own hands, nothing was to be 
seen but slaves. Even this miserable population rapidly dimi- 
nished, because its labour was too expensive; and the proprietor 
found it answer better to turn his land into pasture. The fertile 
fields of Italy ceased to supply food for their inhabitants; the 
provisioning of Rome depended on fleets, which brought corn 
from Sicily, from Egypt, and from Africa: from the capital to 
the uttermost provinces, depopulation followed in the train of 
overgrown wealth; and it was in the midst of this universal pros- 
perity, before a single barbarian had crossed the frontiers of the 
empire, that the difficulty of recruiting the legions began to be 
felt. In the war against the Quadi and the Marcomanni, which 
was preceded by so long a peace, Marcus Aurelius was reduced 
to the necessity of enrolling the slaves and the robbers of Rome. 
The frontier provinces, those most exposed to the attacks of the 
barbarians, those which suffered the most from the presence and 
the military vexations of the legions, did not suffer so much from 
the rapid decline of population, and of the warlike virtues, as 
the more wealthy provinces of the interior. The levies of troops 
were no longer made in Rome; they were raised almost exclu- 
sively in northern Gaul, and along the right bank of the Danube. 
This long Illyrian frontier, in particular, for more than two cen- 
turies preserved the reputation of furnishing more soldiers to the 
empire than all the rest of the provinces combined. This bor- 
der country had offered little temptation to the cupidity of Ro- 
man senators : they cared not to have their property in a province 
constantly harassed by the enemy. The land which the senators 
would not buy, remained in the possession of its old proprietors; 
there, consequently, a population, numerous, free, robust, and 
hardy, still maintained itself. It long furnished the army with 
soldiers; it soon supplied it with chiefs. 



CHAP. II.] DECLINE OF POPULATION. 49 

History, which, during the whole of this period, rarely fixes 
our attention on any individual, has, however, celebrated the vir- 
tues, and still more the munificence, of a subject of the Anto- 
nines, Herodes Atticus, consul in the year 143. He lived almost 
constantly at Athens, in philosophical retirement. Several of the 
monuments with which he adorned the cities situated in the midst 
of his immense domains, are still standing: they give us some 
idea, not only of the liberality, but of the wealth of a Roman of 
that period: and every province contained some citizen who re- 
sembled Herod in magnificence. Adrian appointed him prefect 
of the free cities of Asia. He obtained from that emperor a 
grant of 3,000,000 drachmae (100,000/.) for the construction of 
an aqueduct at the city of Troy^ but, to render it more magnifi- 
cent, he doubled the sum from his own private fortune. At 
Athens, where he presided over the public games, he built a sta- 
dium of white marble, 600 feet in length, and of sufficient size 
to contain the whole body of the people. Shortly afterwards, 
having lost his wife Regilla, he consecrated to her memory a the- 
atre which was unmatched through the whole extent of the empire. 
The only timber used was cedar, which was exquisitely carved. 
The Odeon, built in the time of Pericles, had fallen into ruin: He- 
rodes Atticus rebuilt it, at his own cost, in all its ancient splen- 
dour. Greece was likewise indebted to him for the restoration of 
the temple of Neptune, in the isthmus of Corinth; for the con- 
struction of a theatre at Corinth; for a stadium at Delphi; a bath 
at Thermopylae; and Italy for an aqueduct at Canusium. Many 
other cities of Epirus, Thessalia, Euboea, Boeotia, and Pelopon- 
nesus, were likewise adorned through his liberality. We cannot 
refuse the tribute of praise due to this illustrious citizen, but we 
must pity the country where such fortunes can be accumulated; 
where one man of enormous wealth, and thousands of dependent 
slaves, must have taken the place of millions of men, free, hap- 
py, and virtuous. 

The tyranny of Commodus, the last of the Flavii, his vices 
and his abominations, were punished by the domestic assassina- 
tion which delivered the world of a monster. But with his death 
(December 31, 192) commenced the third and most calamitous 
period; that which we have characterized as the period of up- 
starts — soldiers of fortune, who usurped the imperial power. It 
lasted ninety- two years, a. d. 192 — 284. During that time thir- 
ty-two emperors, and twenty-seven pretenders to the empire, al- 



50 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II. 

ternately hurled each other from the throne bj incessant civil 
warfare. It was during this period that we find the praetorians 
putting the sovereignty of the world to auction; the legions of 
the East and of the West disputing the fatal honour of decorating 
with the purple the chiefs who soon perished by assassination; 
men taken from the lowest ranks of society, without genius, with- 
out education, raised by the brutal caprice of their comrades 
above all that the world had been accustomed to hold in reve- 
rence. Such was the Moor Macrinus, who, in 217, succeeded to 
Caracalla, whom he had caused to be assassinated. Such was the 
Goth Maximin, distinguished only by his gigantic stature, his ig- 
norance, his strength, and his brutality; who was, in like manner, 
the assassin and the successor of Alexander Severus, (a. d. Q55.) 
Such was the Arab Philip, a robber by education and profession, 
and raised to the throne by the murder of Gordian. 

When an absolute monarch is hurled from the throne in con- 
sequence of his tyranny, and dies without natural heirs, their ex- 
ists neither law nor public opinion according to which the trans- 
mission of power may be regulated; there is no authority gene- 
rally recognised as legitimate. Force alone decides; and what 
force has raised, force is just as likely to overthrow. Despotism, 
therefore, gives a character of greater distrust and greater cruel- 
ty to civil war, and to those who direct it; since it eradicates 
every feeling of duty which might serve as a protection to them- 
selves or to their adversaries. Ninety-two years of nearly in- 
cessant civil war taught the world on what a frail and unstable 
foundation the virtue of the Antonines had reared the felicity of 
the empire. The people took no share whatever in these intes- 
tine wars; the sovereignty had passed into the hands of the le- 
gions, and they disposed of it at their pleasure; while the cities, 
indifferent to the claims of the pretenders, having neither garri- 
sons, fortifications, nor armed population, awaited the decisions 
of the legions without a thought of resistance. Yet their help- 
less and despicable neutrality did not save them from the feroci- 
ty or the rapacity of the combatants, who wanted other enemies 
than soldiers, richer plunder than that of a camp; and the slight- 
est mark of favour shown by a city to one pretender to the em- 
pire, was avenged by his successful competitor by military exe- 
cutions, and often by the sale of the whole body of the citizens 
as slaves. 

The very soldiers were sometimes weary of their own tyran- 



CHAP. II.] INCURSIONS OF BARBARIANS. 51 

ny. They had not a single Roman settlement; no memory of li- 
berty or of the republic ; no reverence for the senate or for the 
laws. Their sole notion of legitimate government v^^as the inhe- 
ritance of power; but, during this disastrous period, every at- 
tempt to return to the principle of hereditary succession was ca- 
lamitous. To that, the empire owed the ferocity of Caracalla, 
son of Septimius Severus (a. d. 211 — 217,) the pollution of He- 
liogabalus, his nephew (a. d. 218 — 222;) and the incapacity of 
Gallienus, son of Valerius (a. d. 253 — 268.) The name of Gal- 
lienus is associated with the shameful period in which Rome, 
heretofore the terror of the barbarians, began to tremble before 
them. The legions, enfeebled, and reduced to less than 6000 
men, had been withdrawn from the frontiers, and opposed to each 
other in continually renewed conflicts. Their discipline was ut- 
terly destroyed; their leaders neither merited nor obtained their 
confidence. After a defeat, it was found impossible to recruit 
the army; at the moment of an attack it was with the greatest 
difficulty they could be induced to march. The barbarians, wit- 
nesses of this anarchy and of these conflicts, no longer beholding 
on their frontiers those formidable camps of legions which had 
so long held them in awe, as if by common consent, made in- 
cursions at all points at once, from the extremities of Caledonia 
to those of Persia. 

The Franks, a new confederation of Germanic tribes, who had 
established themselves near the mouths of the Rhine, ravaged 
the whole of Gaul, Spain, and a part of Africa, from the year 
253 to 268. The AUemanni, another new confederation, estab- 
lished on the Upper Rhine, traversed Rhaetia, and advanced a& 
far as Ravenna, pillaging Italy in their course. The Goths, after 
driving the Romans out of Dacia, pillaged Mcesia, massacred 
100,000 of the inhabitants of Philippopolis in Thrace; then,, 
spreading along the coasts of the Euxine, ventured upon this un- 
known sea in vessels they had taken from maritime towns, plun- 
dered the cities of Colchis and Asia Minor, and at length pene- 
trated, by the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, into Greece, which 
they laid waste from one extremity to the other. At the same 
time, the Persians of the new djTiasty of the Sassanides menaced 
the East. Sapor (or, according to Persian pronunciation. Shah 
Poor,) had conquered Armenia. The emperor Valerian, father 
and colleague of Gallienus, marched to meet him in Mesopota- 
mia. He was defeated and made prisoner in the year 260. The 



52 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II. 

Persian monarch then ravaged Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia; 
and his progress was only arrested on the confines of Arabia, by 
Odenatus, the wealthy senator of Palmyra, and his wife, the ce- 
lebrated Zenobia. 

This first universal discomfiture of the Roman arms, coming 
after such unrivalled power and success, gave a blow to the em- 
pire from which it never recovered. In all their invasions, the 
barbarians preserved the recollection of the long terrors and the 
long resentment with which the Romans had inspired them. 
Their hatred was still ° too fresh and fervent to allow them to 
show any pity to their vanquished foes. Till then they had seen 
nothing of the Romans but their soldiers 5 but when they sudden- 
ly penetrated into the midst of these magnificent and populous 
cities, at first they feared that they should be crushed by a mul- 
titude so superior to their own 5 but, when they saw and under- 
stood the cowardice of these enervated masses, their fear was 
changed into the deepest scorn. Their cruelty was in proportion 
to these two sentiments, and their object was rather destruction 
than conquest. The population, which had been thinned by the 
operation of wealth and luxury, was now farther reduced by that 
of poverty. The human species seemed to vanish before the 
sword of the barbarians. Sometimes they massacred all the in- 
habitants of a townj sometimes they sent them into slavery, far 
from the country of their birth. After such calamities, fresh 
fears, fresh oppression, fresh miseries, effectually checked the 
growth of the population. Vast deserts formed themselves in the 
heart of the empire, and the wisest and most virtuous of the em- 
perors endeavoured to entice new colonies to settle there. 

The military elections, however, which had brought the empire 
into so perilous a condition, at length furnished it with defenders. 
The formidable armed democracy which had consulted only its 
cupidity or its caprice, in investing its unworthy favourites with 
the purple, so long as its sole object was to share the spoil of the 
state 5 when its own safety was threatened, its own existence 
compromised, together with that of the empire, had at least a 
distinct perception of the sort of merit which might avail to save 
it. Without great military talents it was impossible to gain the 
esteem of the Roman army, even in its decline. When the sol- 
diers wanted great men, they knew where to find themj and, to 
keep the barbarians in check, they at length made elections 
which did them honour. 



CHAP. II.] EMPERORS ELECTED BY THE SOLDIERY. 55 

It was the soldiery that elected Claudius (a. d. 268 — 270,) 
who obtained so great a victory over the Goths, and for a time 
saved the empire; Aurelian (a. d. 270 — 275,) who re-established 
the unity of power, and crushed all rival pretensions to the 
throne, which had divided the army and the provinces; who sub- 
jugated the East, and led captive that Zenobia who had carried 
Greek civilization to Palmyra, and had accustomed Arabs to 
triumph over Romans and Persians. It was the soldiery that 
chose Tacitus, whose virtues were manifest even in a reign of 
six months (a. d. 275;) Prohus (a. d. 276 — '282,) who defeated 
nearly all the German tribes in succession, and drove them out 
of Gaul and the provinces of the Danube. Lastly, it was the 
soldiery who gave the crown to Diocletian, who put an end to 
this long period of anarchy. This succession of great captains 
sufficiently proved that valour was not extinct: that military ta- 
lents were still at command; and that the soldiers, when they 
really wished to save the state, were no bad judges of the quali- 
ties demanded by the public weal. 

But such a succession of invasions and civil wars, so much 
suifering, disorder, and crime, had brought the empire into a 
state of mortal languor, from which it never revived. The ne- 
cessities of the state had increased with its dangers. The im- 
poverished provinces were compelled to double the taxes, which 
had been too heavy for them even in their greatest prosperity; 
survivors were obliged to pay for the dead. The distress and 
despair which urged the peasantry to abandon their land and 
seek refuge in flight, constantly increased, and the deserts spread 
with frightful rapidity. The wise and victorious Probus was 
reduced to the necessity of repeopling his provinces with the 
enemies he had subdued, and of recruiting his legions with cap- 
tives. He transported a colony of Yandals into England; he 
planted Gepidae on the banks of the Rhine; Franks on those of 
the Danube; other Franks in Asia Minor, and Bastarnae in 
Thrace: but, though he took care to place each barbarous nation 
at an immense distance from its home, with very few exceptions 
they soon disdained the enjoyments of civilized life which were 
oflfered them, and the lands which were allotted to them; they 
revolted, plundered the unarmed natives of the province, crossed 
the empire in every direction, and, at length, regained their natal 
soil. The most daring of these rebellions was that of the Franks 
settled on the Euxine. They seized some vessels in a port of 

8 



54 TALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II. 

the Black Sea, descended the Hellespont, pillaged Greece and 
Sicily, sailed through the Straits of Cadiz, and, after laying waste 
the coast of Spain and Gaul, landed in Friesland amid their 
kindred tribes. 

Probus had likewise required from the Germans an annual 
levy of 6000 recruits, whom he incorporated into the different 
legions. It was his endeavour, as he said, that the Roman 
should feel the aid of the barbarian, but should not see it. But 
a disgraceful succour cannot long be concealed. The Roman 
saw that the barbarian was capable of occupying his place in the 
camp, and gladly threw aside his buckler. By a scandalous de- 
cree, Gallienus had forbidden the senators to serve in the army; 
nor did one of them, either during his reign or that of his suc- 
cessors, ever protest against this degrading exclusion, though it 
deprived them of all share in the administration of public affairs, 
and of all chance of ascending the throne. From that time the 
highest class of society ceased to be respected by others, or by 
itself. It sought only to lose all thought of the evils which be- 
set the state, in vice and dissipation; luxury and effeminacy in- 
creased with the public calamities; and those whom fate threat- 
ened with the most intense sufferings, sought no better prepara- 
tion for them than in the most shameful pleasures. 

We have, at length, come to the fourth period, the last of those 
into which we divided the history of the empire'— that of the 
colleagues who shared the sovereignty from the year 284 to the 
year 328. It is shorter than those which preceded it, and we 
shall, therefore, pass over it more briefly; the rather, that a part 
of this period will require our attention hereafter. 

Diocletian, who was proclaimed emperor by the army of Per- 
sia, on the 17th of September, 284, was an Illyrian soldier, whose 
parents were slaves, and who had probably been a slave himself 
in his youth. This man, whose own strength had enabled him to 
ascend from the most abject to the highest station in society, 
proved to the world that he was still more distinguished for the 
vigour of his genius, the prudence of his counsels, his empire 
over his own passions and over the minds of others, than by his 
personal bravery. He felt that the empire, decrepit and totter- 
ing on its ancient base, required a new form, a new constitu- 
tion. Neither his servile birth, his education, nor the examples 
he saw around him, were of a kind to inspire him with much 
esteem for men. He expected little from them. He did not 



CHAP. II.] DIOCLETIAN. 55 

even appear to understand that liberty which had once inspired 
the Romans with such heroic valour. All the recollections of 
the republic were degraded and defaced, nor did he attempt t-o 
turn them to any advantage: he saw nothing but the danger of 
the invasion of barbarians; he thought of nothing but the means 
of resistance; and he organized a military government, strong, 
prompt, and energetic. But he reflected that the head of such a 
government was placed, by his very isolation, by the immense dis- 
tance that severed him from all other men, in a situation of pe- 
culiar peril; and that community of interest, combination for mu- 
tual defence, was the basis of all security. He, therefore, asso- 
ciated with himself colleagues in whom he hoped to find defenders 
in time of danger, and avengers if he fell. Thus he founded a 
despotism on that balance of power which is the essence of free 
government. 

To this end he traced that division of the empire, which we 
have already described, into the four great prefectures of Gaul, 
lUyricum, Italy, and the East. He intrusted the administration 
of the two most peaceful, rich, and civilized, Italy and the East, 
to two Augusti, while two Caesars were called to defend Gaul 
and lUyricum. He offered the two Caesars, as a definite and le- 
gitimate object of ambition, the succession of the two Augusti, 
to whom they were bound by rites of adoption. All the armies 
being thus attached to his system, and commanded by his col- 
leagues, he had no longer to dread revolt. He gave them a new 
organization and new names; he strengthened their discipline, 
while he made some concessions to the degeneracy of the age, by 
lightening their armour and increasing the proportion of the ca- 
valry and light infantry to the infantry of the line. With these 
new armies he drove the barbarians beyond the frontiers at all 
points, and once more rendered the empire formidable. Diocle- 
tian reserved to himself the government of the East. He estab- 
lished his court, not at Antioch, though that was the capital of 
the prefecture, but at Nicomedia on the Propontis, nearly oppo- 
site the spot on which Constantinople was afterwards built. He 
affected an oriental splendour, which was neither in keeping with 
his soldier-like habits, nor with the vigour of his mind and cha- 
racter. He gave Italy to Augustus Maximian, an Illyrian pea- 
sant like himself, and his old companion in arms, whom he com- 
missioned to humble the senate and city of Rome. Caesar Gale- 
rius was charged with the government of Illyricum, and Caesar 



56 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. II. 

Constantius Chlorus with that of Gaul. Despotism, which trains 
men to regard all resistance as a crime, or as a dangerous revolt, 
renders them cruel and sanguinary. The soldier-like education 
of Diocletian and his colleagues, the rank whence they had been 
elevated, the habit of seeing blood flow, increased this ferocity. 
The government of the colleagues was stained with numerous 
executions; but the character of these acts of violence was not 
the same as that of the atrocities of the earlier Caesars. In Ti- 
berius and his successors, we find that cruelty which is almost 
invariably united with cowardice and effeminacy; in Diocletian 
and his colleagues, that ferocity which the lower orders of the 
people often display in their abuse of power. Maximian and 
Galerius had preserved all the habits of brutal and illiterate pea- 
sants. Severus and Maximin, who were afterwards joined to 
them in power, were from the same class. Constantine Chlorus 
alone belonged to a more distinguished family, and in him we find 
proofs of more humane sentiments. 

It was much more the indignation which all resistance, all in- 
dependence of mind, excite in tyrants, than any superstitious 
prejudice, that induced Diocletian and his colleagues to set on 
foot a violent persecution of the Christians. The new religion 
had spread in silence, and had made considerable progress 
throughout the Roman empire; though it had hardly excited the 
attention of the government, or that of the Roman historians, 
who, during the three first centuries, seem hardly to have re- 
marked its existence. It had had no share iri the revolutions, 
no public or political influence; the philosophers had not thought 
it worth their while to engage in controversies with obscure sec- 
taries. The priests of the ancient gods were doubtless indig- 
nant at seeing their altars neglected by a set of men who were 
daily becoming more numerous; but these priests did not form a 
body in the state. Those of each divinity thought they had 
separate interests; they had little influence, and small means 
of injuring. The first persecutions, therefore, as they are called, 
were little more than random acts of violence, extending to few 
victims, and over a short space of time. But when brutal sol- 
diers, impatient of all opposition, had been invested with the 
purple, and when order had been sufficiently re-established 
throughout the empire for them to perceive all that transgressed 
the limits of despotism, they were indignant at the existence of 
a new religion, as a violation of uniformity of obedience. They 



CHAP. II.] PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 5T 

looked upon it much more as a breach of discipline, than of 
pietj; and they persecuted the Christians, not as enemies to 
their gods, but as rebels to their own authority. The more ab- 
solute they were, the more exasperated were they at that new 
power of the soul which rendered it insensible to pain, trium- 
phant in torture^ which calmly and unresistingly rose above the 
reach of their power. The struggle between the fury of des- 
potism and the heroism of conviction, between executioners and 
martyrs, is worthy of eternal remembrance. It endured, with 
little interruption, up to the end of the fourth period, or the union 
of the whole empire under Constantine. 

Diocletian, as if to secure the perpetuity of the system of go- 
vernment of which he was the author, determined to become, 
as it were, witness of his own succession. In his four-headed 
despotism he had reckoned on what he had found in himself — 
the ascendency of superior genius over ordinary men. So long 
as he retained the purple, he was the real, the only head of the 
government. "When he resolved to retire from the world, and 
to call the two Csesars, Galerius and Constantius Chlorus, to 
the places of the Augusti, he had sufficient influence over his 
colleague, Maximian, (though by no means disgusted with 
power,) to induce him to lay aside the purple at Milan, on the 
1st of May, 305, at the same time that he himself resigned it at 
Nicomedia. With a strength of mind which absolute sway 
had not enfeebled, he confined himself for nine years within 
the narrow enclosure of private life, without evincing a regret; 
and found in the care of his garden at Salona, a serenity and 
content which he had never known as emperor. But, from the 
time of his retirement, the division of the sovereign power 
brought about its ruin. During the republic, the consuls had 
shared the command of the armies without jealousy, because 
both were subject to a superior power — that of the senate and 
the people. In like manner the colleagues of Diocletian had 
always felt that in him alone resided the whole majesty of an- 
cient Rome; but as soon as they recognised nothing above them- 
selves, they thought only of their personal greatness; and the 
remainder of the fourth period, as we shall contemplate it during 
the reign of Constantine, was a scene of perpetual tumult and 
intestine warfare. 



( 58 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

Barbarians anterior to the Fourth Century^-Revlew of the Barbarous Na- 
tions bordering on the Roman Territory — 1. Barbarians of Africa; Bere- 
beri, Gsetuli, Moors. — 2. Of Asia; Arabs. — Splendour of Palmyra. — Ze- 
nobia. — Parthian Empire. — Revolt of the Persians.— Their imperfect Ci- 
vihzation. — Armenians. — Scythians, or Tartars. — Their unaltered Charac- 
ter. — Warlike Habits of Nomadic Tribes. — Overthrow of the Empire of 
the Huns by the Sienpi, Cause of their Migration westward. — Alans. — 
Taifalze. — 3. Barbarous Nations of Europe. — Three great Tribes, Celts, 
Slavonions, Germans. — Extent of Tei-ritory, Habits, and Religion of the 
Celts. — Slavonic Tribes. — Germanic Tribes, — Influence of their Manners 
and Institutions on modern Europe. — Their Superiority to the other 
Races. — Character and Habits. — Attachment to Freedom. — Pohtical In- 
stitutions. — Kings. — Popular Assemblies. — Reverence for Women. — Re- 
ligion. 

We have endeavoured, as far as was consistent with the nar- 
row limits prescribed to us, to place before our readers the condi- 
tion and progress of that part of the human species over which 
civilization had been diffused by the Greek and Roman arms. 
This vast population was subject to laws still in force in our own 
tribunals; it had begun to acknowledge the religion we still pro- 
fess; it studied, and strove to imitate, the same master-pieces of 
literature and art which are still the objects of our highest admi- 
ration; in the culture of the mental faculties it pursued a system 
from which we have not widely deviated. Even the manners of 
the large cities of the Roman empire had considerable resem- 
blance to our own. 

We must now transfer our attention to another important por- 
tion of mankind: — to that which was included under the common 
denomination of barbarian; and which, at a period whose events 
we are about to trace, utterly overthrew that government which 
the civilized world had so long obeyed. From the time of this 
great revolution, a new race of men took possession of the re- 
gions we now inhabit, bringing with them other laws, other reli- 
gious opinions, other manners, other notions of the perfection of 
man, and, by consequence, of the ends to be sought in educa- 
tion. The intermixture of the two races was not accomplished 
till after long sufferings, nor without the destruction of a great 
part of that progress towards improvement which mankind had 



CHAP. III.] BARBARIC TRIBES OF AFRICA. 59 

made during a course of ages. It was, however, this intermix- 
ture which made us what we are: we are heirs of the double in- 
heritance of the Romans and the barbarians^ we have engrafted 
the laws, institutions, manners, and opinions of the one race on 
those of the other. If we would know ourselves, we must go 
back to the study of our progenitors; of those who transmitted 
to us their culture, no less than of those who sought to de- 
stroy it. 

It is not our object to pass in review the various tribes of the 
whole civilized world; we shall confine our attention to those 
who came into collision with the Roman world; who were pre- 
paring to appear as actors in the terrible drama we are about to 
behold. We shall have very few names of illustrious indivi- 
duals, very few dates, with which to encumber the memory of 
our readers. The state of savage man must be studied as part 
of the natural history of the species^ but it is subject to few di- 
versities, or those diversities are of a kind easily to elude our 
observation. History begins with civilization. So long as man 
has to struggle with physical wants, he concentrates his whole 
attention on the present; for him there is no past, no memory of 
events, no history. Not only the migrations of tribes, the vir- 
tues, the errors, or the crimes of their leaders, are not handed 
down from age to age; their internal policy, their manners, even 
at the moment of their coming in contact with civilized nations, 
are very imperfectly, often very unfaithfully, represented. The 
barbarians did not describe themselves; they have left no record 
of their own sentiments, or of their own thoughts; and those 
who have described them saw them through the medium of their 
prejudices. In order to introduce some arrangement into our 
remarks on the barbarous nations which contributed to the over- 
throw of the Roman empire, we shall follow the frontier line of 
that empire; setting out from the southern point, and proceeding 
eastward and along the north. We shall thus pass in review the 
border nations of Africa, Asia, and Europe. We shall begin 
with the nations which exercised the least influence over the des- 
tinies of Rome, and end with the most important. Following 
this order, we find the Gsetuli, the Moors, the Arabs, the Per- 
sians, the Armenians, the Nomadic or shepherd tribes of Tartary, 
and the three main stems or races of ancient Europe, the Celtic 
or Keltic, the Slavonic, and the Teutonic or Germanic. 

The most obscure and feeble among the neighbours of the em- 



60 FALL OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. III. 

pire were the tribes inhabiting Africa south of the Roman pro- 
vinces: on this frontier, as well as on all the others, the Romans 
had begun by imposing a tribute on the border countries, in order 
to keep their kings in a state of dependence: then, after accus- 
toming them for some time to obedience, they incorporated the 
whole people with the empire. Caligula reduced Mauritania to 
the condition of a Roman province; and, under the reign of the 
emperor Claudius, the Romans founded colonies up to the verge 
of the great desert. One of the most southerly of their cities, 
Salee, situated in the present kingdom of Morocco, was exposed 
to frequent incursions of wild elephants: wild beasts were, in- 
deed, almost the only enemies they had to fear on this frontier; 
for the Roman power extended nearly as far as the habitable 
country: generals, and men of consular dignity, had penetrated 
into all the gorges of Mount Atlas. The wandering troops of 
Berbers, of Gsetuli, or of Moors, alone traversed the deserts, as 
merchants or as robbers. Some cultivated the oases, which, wa- 
tered by some perennial spring, rose like verdant islands in the 
midst of the sands; others, with their camels laden with ivory, 
and often with slaves, crossed the Zahara, and established a 
communication between Nigritia and the Roman province. 
Without fixed dwelling-places, without regular government, 
they remained free because they were wanderers. The Romans 
had not conquered them because they could not conquer nature. 
They asked of them only the ivory and the citrons with which 
their caravans were laden; the murex which the Gaetuli gathered 
on their rocks; the lions, tigers, and all the monsters of Libya, 
which were taken at great cost to Rome and the other great ci- 
ties of the empire, for the savage combats of the amphitheatre. 
A very active trade penetrated much farther into central Africa 
than that of the Europeans of the present day. Pliny expresses 
his wonder that, although so many merchants continually tra- 
versed these regions, so many Roman magistrates had penetrated 
as far as Mount Atlas or the desert, he had found it difficult to 
collect any thing relating to the country but fables. 

But the Africans did not always remain at so respectful a dis- 
tance, nor in so pacific an attitude. In proportion as the op- 
pression of magistrates, the weight of taxation, and the disasters 
of the empire, thinned the population of the Roman province, 
the Moors and the Gaetuli poured down from Mount Atlas, or 
issued forth from the desert, and drove their flocks and herds to 



CHAP. III.] BARBAROUS NATIONS OF AFRICA. 61 

feed in the neglected fields. Constantl j armed, but still timo- 
rous^ regarding property as a usurpation, and civilization as a 
foe; professing no religion but vengeance, and denying the right 
of their enemies to exercise over them a judicial restraint which 
they vj^ould not tolerate from their own chiefs, they plundered 
the more remote and unprotected lands, and, when they found 
resistance, fled. They regarded the punishment of their robbe- 
ries as a wrong and an insult to their nation; and waited in si- 
lence the opportunity of taking ruthless revenge. Their depre- 
dations gradually became more formidable,, and drove the Ro- 
mans nearer and nearer to the coast. At the commencement of 
the fourth century, Mauritanian princes had begun to form anew 
small tributary states between Carthage and the desert, and ci- 
vilization had almost disappeared at the foot of Mount Atlas, 
while the people still remained in a state of subjugation. 

Egypt was, likewise, girt round by savage tribes, who had 
sought the freedom of the wilderness within the boundaries of 
the Roman territory. The Nasamonian Moors approached the 
western bank of the Nile, the Arabs the eastern; and the two 
races were hard to distinguish. Abyssinia and Nubia, which, 
two centuries later, were converted to Christianity by the Egyp- 
tians, bad, at the time we are treating of, little communication 
with the Romans. Egypt was by much the most southerly of the 
Roman possessions; one of its largest cities, Syene, was situated 
under the tropic of Cancer. The prodigious monuments of its 
early civilization, on the origin of which history affords us no 
light, are found mingled with remains of Roman art. For the 
first time, the works of the masters of the world appeared petty 
and contemptible by the side of temples whose construction 
passes our comprehension. Lower Egypt had adopted the lan- 
guage and manners of Greece; Upper Egjpt preserved the use 
of the ancient Egyptian tongue — the Coptic; and the deserts of 
Thebais already concealed in their inhospitable wastes a new 
and strange nation — a nation barbarous in aspect and in man- 
ners; from which women and the joys of domestic life were ba- 
nished; perpetuated only by the misanthropy or the fanaticism 
of its neighbours. St. Anthony, an illiterate peasant of the 
Thebais, had retired into the desert, to a distance of three days' 
journey from the habitable country. He chose a spot where a 
living spring supplied him with drink, and depended on the cha- 
rity of his neighbours for food: he lived more than a century 

9 



62 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. III. 

(from A. D. 251, to a. d. 356.) Before his death, 5000 monks, fol- 
lowing his example, had retired into the deserts of Nitria. They 
took vows of poverty, solitude, prayer, dirt, and ignorance; they 
entered with passion into theological disputes; and their irrup- 
tions, in which they enforced their dogmas with clubs and stones, 
much more than with arguments, disturbed the tranquillity of the 
capital of Egypt before it w^as exposed to the attacks of the bar- 
barians. 

The great peninsula of Arabia, lying between Egypt and Per- 
sia, was imperfectly known to the Romans: this region, four 
times as extensive as France, was not formed by nature to sus- 
tain a numerous population, nor to admit of a state of civiliza- 
tion resembling our own. The Romans kept up some communi- 
cation through it with India, but left to the Arabs the toil and 
peril of conducting caravans through the desert. They saw 
with amazement a nation permanently combining trade with pil- 
lage; they already designated by the name of Saracens those 
daring robbers who issued from the desert and infested the plains 
of Syria, forming a cavalry unmatched in the world, especially 
lor the indomitable ardour and the docility of their horses. But 
they did not guess the qualities which lay dormant in the Arab 
character; qualities which we shall see in full strength and ac- 
tivity three centuries later, when this nation girded itself up for 
the conquest of the world. 

It was in the midst of these deserts, 500 miles from Seleucia, 
on the Tigris, one of the largest cities of Persia, 200 miles from 
the frontiers of Syria, that the city of Palmyra arose, as if by 
enchantment, in a fertile country, watered by plenteous springs, 
and thickly studded with waving palms. Immense plains of 
sand surrounded it on all sides, serving as a barrier against the 
Parthians and the Romans, and pervious only to the caravans of 
the Arabs, who exchanged the treasures of the East and of the 
West between these two nations, and reposed, after their toil- 
some march, in this sumptuous city. 

Palmyra, peopled by a colony of Greeks and of Arabs, united 
the manners of both. Its government was republican, and it 
maintained its independence during the time of the greatest 
power of Rome. The Parthians and the Romans were equally 
anxious to secure its alliance in all their wars. After his victo- 
ries over the Parthians, Trajan united this republic to the Ro- 
man empire. Commerce, however, did not abandon Palmyra; 



CHAP. III.] ZENOBIA. 63 

its wealth continued to increase, and its opulent citizens covered 
their paternal soil with those superb specimens of Greek archi- 
tecture, which still astound the traveller who beholds them, 
rising in lonely grandeur out of the sands of the desert. No- 
thing remains of Palmyra but these ruins, and the brilliant and 
romantic story of Zenobia. This extraordinary woman was the 
daughter of an Arab scheik; she declared herself descended 
from Cleopatra, whom she, however, far surpassed in dignity and 
in virtue. Zenobia owed her power only to the services she ren- 
dered to her country. During the reign of Gallienus, when the 
empire was attacked on every side, when Valerian was prisoner 
to the king of Persia, and Asia was inundated with his armies, 
Zenobia imboldened her husband Odenatus, a rich senator of 
Palmyra, to resist the invasion of the Persians, of his own au- 
thority, and with no otiier aid than that of his fellow-citizens and 
the Arabs of the desert. She shared all her husband's toils and 
dangers, whether in the field, or in his favourite sport, lion-hunt- 
ing. She defeated Sapor, pursued him twice up to the very gates 
of Ctesiphon, and reigned, at first, in conjunction with Odenatus, 
and, after his death, alone, over Syria and Egypt, which were 
hers by conquest. Trebellius PoUio, a contemporary writer, 
who saw her on that fatal occasion when she was led in triumph 
to Rome, (a. d. 273,) paints her thus: It is the ideal of a lofty 
Arab beauty: — 

" Zenobia received those who came to pay her homage with 
Persian pomp, exacting the sort of adoration paid to eastern mo- 
narchs; but, at table, she followed the Roman customs. When 
she addressed the people, she appeared with a helmet on her 
head and her arms bare^ but a mantle of purple, adorned with 
gems, partly covered her person. Her countenance was of an 
aquiline cast; her complexion was not brilliant, but her black 
eyes, of singular radiance, were animated with a celestial fire, 
and an inexpressible grace. Her teeth were of such dazzling 
whiteness, that it was commonly thought she had substituted 
pearls for those nature had given her. Her voice was clear and 
harmonious, yet manly. On occasion, she knew how to show 
a tyrant's severity; but she delighted rather in the clemency of 
good princes. Beneficent with wisdom and moderation, she 
husbanded her treasure in a manner little common among wo- 
men. She was to be seen at the head of her armies in her car, 
on horseback, or foot, but rarely in a more luxurious carriage." 



64 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. Ill, 

Such was the woman who vanquished Sapor, and who gave 
hfir confidence to the sublime Longinus, the instructer of her 
chiWren, and her prime minister. 

Up to the year 226 of the Christian era, the Roman territory 
was bounded by Parthia on its eastern border: after that period, 
the Persian Sassanides were their neighbours on the same fron- 
tier. The Parthians, a Celtic tribe, sprung from Bactriana, had 
founded their empire 256 years before Christ. They had con- 
quered Persia from the Caspian Sea up to the Persian Gulf. 
This vast territory, bounded by two seas, by lofty mountains, 
and sandy deserts, has almost always formed an independent 
state difficult to attack, and almost incapacitated from acquiring 
or maintaining distant possessions. For nearly five centuries of 
domination, the Parthians remained strangers amid the subject 
Persians. They had given to their monarchy a form somewhat 
resembling the feudal governments of Europe. Their kings, of 
the family of the Arsacides, had granted small tributary sove- 
reignties to a great number of the princes of their house, and to 
other men of high birth. All this nobility, indeed the whole of 
the victor race, were mounted for the field. Several Greek co- 
lonies preserved their republican institutions and their indepen- 
dence in the midst of the monarchy; but the Persians were not 
trusted either with civil power, or with the use of arnis, and 
were held in complete subjection. 

These Persians were urged to revolt by Artaxerxes, or Ard- 
sMr, founder of the dynasty of the Sassanides; who, after his 
victories, declared himself descended from those kings of Persia 
who had bowed to the victorious arms of Alexander the Great. 
He was yet more poweri'ully seconded hj religious enthusiasm, 
than by the feeling of national honour or independence. The 
ancient religion of Zoroaster was once more placed on the throne. 
The belief in the two principles, Ormusd and Ahriraan, the re- 
velation of the Zenda Vesta; the worship of fire or light, as the 
representative of the Good Principle; the horror of temples and 
images; the power of the magi, which extended to the most in- 
different actions of every true believer; the spirit of persecution 
{cruelly displayed against the Christians when they began to 
spread over Persia,) were re-established by a national council, 
in which 80,000 magi assembled oyi the convocation of Arta- 
;terxes. 

The Persians affirmed that the sceptre of these kings extended 



CHAP* III.3 CHARACTER OF THE PERSIANS. 65 

over 40,000,000 of subjects 5 but the population of the countries 
of the East has always been imperfectly known. The numbers 
usually given in history have been taken from the hyperbolical 
reports of their writers, and not from any statistical documents. 
The Persians can neither be classed with civilized nations, nor 
with barbarians; though the Greeks and Romans always gave 
them the latter appellation. They had acquired those arts 
which minister to luxury and effeminacy, but not those which 
refine or elevate the taste; they had laws emanating from de- 
spotic power, which preserve order, but which secure to a nation 
neither justice nor happiness; they had that literary culture which 
feeds the imagination, but does not enlighten the understanding; 
their religion, that of the two principles, and their aversion for 
idolatry satisfied the reason, but did not purify the heart. It was 
at this stage of civilization, which contains within itself an ob- 
stacle to all farther progress, that the people of the East founded 
great empires, while man never attained the highest excellence 
and dignity of which he is capable. Artaxerxes (a.d. 226 — 238,) 
and his son Sapor (a. d. 238 — 269,) achieved great victories over 
nations protected by the Romans, and even over the Romans 
themselves. But their monarchy experienced the fate of all de- 
spotic governments, until its total subversion by the Mussulmans 
in 651. Its history is composed of treachery and massacre in the 
royal family, the members of which hurled each other from the 
throne in rapid succession; of long periods devoted to vice, or to 
an effeminate indolence, broken only by flashes of ambition, lead- 
ing to desolating wars. 

The Parthians had conquered Armenia, which lay between 
their territory and that of the Romans, and had placed on the 
throne of Artaxata, the Armenian capital, a younger branch of 
their own kings, the Arsacides. Liberty has ever been unknown 
in Armenia. The lofty mountains which surround the country 
failed to inspire the inhabitants with the courage which is the 
ordinary characteristic of mountaineers. The Armenians were 
patient, industrious, but always subdued and dependent. At the 
time of the fall of the Parthian empire, they were conquered by 
Artaxerxes and by Sapor. Nevertheless, Tiridates, heir of their 
ancient line of kings, threw off the Persian yoke in the year 297, 
and, with the aid of the Romans, rendered Armenia indepen- 
dent. His reign (a. d. 297 — 342) is regarded by the Armenians 
as the period of their glory. It was at this time that they adopt- 



66 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. III. 

ed the Christian religion, which cemented their alliance with the 
Romans; it was then that they invented the written character 
still in use among them; that they produced a literature which 
they still regard with admiration, — an admiration, however, con- 
fined to themselves; — lastly, that they began to translate the 
Bible, and some Greek works, which have been found among 
them in our own times. This prosperity was not of long conti- 
nuance. At the death of Tiridates, their fate was that which 
must ever await a nation which risks its happiness, its existence, 
on the chances of succession of an absolute monarchy. 

Such were the countries of Asia which bordered on the Roman 
territory. But to the north of Caucasus, of Thibet, and of the 
mountains of Armenia, a race of men existed, entirely different 
from those we have described; a race free and untamed; not 
bound to the soil they inhabited; a terror to all their neighbours, 
and destined to exercise a disastrous influence over the fate of 
Rome. This was the countless nomad people, comprehended 
under the name of Scythians, or Tartars. The Tartar race was 
spread over the whole extent of country (measuring from west 
to east) from the shores of the Black Sea, where it touches on 
the Slavonic tribes, to the sea of Japan and the Kurile Islands, 
or to the great wall of China; and, from north to south, from the 
neighbourhood of the frozen sea, to the lofty chain of Thibet, 
which separates the cold regions of northern from the burning 
climes of southern Asia, leaving no temperate district between. 
The centre of Asia seems to b^ composed of a vast table land, 
which rises to the level of our highest mountains, and which its 
temperature unfits for any very varied cultivation, though its 
boundless steppes are clothed by nature with a luxuriant vegeta- 
tion. In these boundless plains, the Tartar tribes have, from 
the most remote antiquity, preserved the same manners and the 
same mode of life. They have invariably deSpised the labours of 
tillage; have subsisted solely on the produce of their herds and 
flocks; and have as invariably shown the utmost readiness to 
follow, not as an organized army, but as an armed nation, any 
chieftain who would lead them on to the plunder of more tempe- 
rate regions, and of more civilized nations. The men live on 
horseback, or in their tents, holding nothing honourable but war, 
nothing venerable but the sword, which was formerly the emblem 
of their sanguinary divinity. The women follow the men in 
covered cars which contain their families and all their wealth, 



CHAP. III.] MANNERS OF THE TARTAR TRIBES. 67 

and which are, during half the jear, their only dwelling-place. 
Their contempt for the sedentary arts is unchangeable: they 
esteem it an honour or a duty to destroy, to extirpate, the civili- 
zation which they detest, and regard as hostile; and if a chief, 
endowed with the talents of Attila, Zengis, or Timur, were now 
to spring up among them, they would be as eager as ever to 
rear the horrible trophies which marked their conquests — the 
pyramids of heads for which Timur, the most humane of the three, 
ordered the massacre of 70,000 inhabitants of Ispahan, and 
90,000 of Bagdad. Now, as then, they would, perhaps, propose 
to rase every edifice, every wall, that, to use their favourite ex- 
pression, no obstacle might arrest the career of their lightning- 
footed steeds. 

But though their character is unaltered, their numbers are no 
longer the same; the inhabitants of Siberia, and of all the borders 
of the frozen ocean, subdued by the rigour of the climate, and by 
their necessities, have established themselves in permanent 
dwellings, and submitted to the Russian yoke. The inhabitants 
of the valleys of Thibet, subjugated by a stern theocracy, have 
lost their energy in the convents of the grand lama. Indepen- 
dent Tartary, the country of the Kalmucs, the Usbecs, the Mon- 
gols, is very much narrowed: it occupies only a third of the 
space it occupied in the time of the Romans; still, however, its 
extent is prodigious, and its population may j^t visit Asia with 
new revolutions. 

The Tartars have continued free. It would be difficult to 
establish a despotism in the midst of boundless plains; unsup- 
ported by fortresses or prisons, by standing armies, by police, or 
courts of justice. The sovereignty resides in the Couroultai, or 
assembly of the nation, to which all the free men repair on horse- 
back. Here they decide on peace and war, frame and promulge 
laws, and administer justice. Domestic slavery has, in all ages,, 
formed a part of their system of manners ^ the absence of all cul- 
tivation of the land is a security for the slave's obedience; his- 
only food is what he receives from the hand of his master; he ha& 
no means of existing without the milk and the flesh of the herds 
he tends; and if he attempted to flee into the boundless steppes 
where nature has provided no sustenance for man, he v/ould soon- 
perish from hunger. Besides, although the Tartar has the right 
of life and death over his slave, he usually treats him with con- 
siderable mildness, and regards him as a member of his family: 



68 FALL pF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. HI* 

he even trusts him with arms for the defence of his camp and his 
flocks. Where civilization has not refined the manners, and se- 
parated the ranks of society bj an impassable distance, similar 
occupations, common wants, and common toils, compel man to 
recognise man in his slave; while the boundless extent given to 
the paternal authority confounds the son with the slave, and thus 
tends yet farther to obliterate the distinction. The chief, or 
khan, of a Tartar family rejoices in the increase of his children 
and of his serfs, as much as in that of his flocks and herds. Thus, 
without emerging from a private station, he sometimes finds him- 
self at the head of an army; he has yearly to remove his tents 
from summer to winter pastures, and thus, in the exercise of his 
domestic economy, to plan and conduct great military marches. 
His children and his slaves are ready to second him in all his 
quarrels, to revenge all insults to his honour, if he receive any 
aggression or aff'ront from a neighbour or from a superior. These 
petty feuds have often been the first cause of the great revolu- 
tions of Asia. Often, we may observe a chief, encouraged by 
his victories over some personal enemy, turn his arms against 
the rich cities of Sogdiana or Bactriana; pillage Bocchara or Sa- 
marcand, and at length, march to the conquest of Persia, of India, 
China, or the West. Often, too, we see a vanquished warrior, 
nay, a fugitive slave, traverse the desert to escape from the ven- 
geance of his adversary; fall in with some wandering horde; go 
on increasing the number of his troop; and, at length, appear as 
a conqueror on the frontiers of civilized countries. 

Every incident of pastoral life is a preparation for war. The 
constant habit of braving the inclemency of the seasons, and the 
attacks of wild beasts; the science of the encampments, and the 
marches which form a part of daily life; habitual temperance, and 
yet great facility in obtaining food; for the flocks of the Tartars 
follow the armies, which are but bands of their shepherds. In 
fact, in the Scythian tribes, every man is a soldier, and the foe 
whom they attack or invade has not an army, but a nation to con- 
tend with. This explains the phenomenon, which appears at first 
sight inexplicable, of a desert pouring down, upon popular and 
civilized countries, torrents of armed men. This northern re- 
gion, which has been called the Mother of Nations, does not teem 
with such a superabundance of life. A shepherd can hardly ex- 
ist on the quantity of land which would feed twenty husband- 
men; but when a million of inhabitants issue forth from a region 



CHAP. III.] BARBAROUS NATIONS OF EUROPE. 69 

far superior to Europe in extent, there would be among them at 
least 200,000 men capable of bearing arms| and this number is 
frequently sufficient to overthrow an empire. The country they 
have abandoned remains a desert, and there is no proof that it 
has ever contained more inhabitants than it could support. 

The stream of emigration from Grand Tartary has taken its 
course, alternately, to the east, the west, and the south. At the 
time of the overthrow of the Roman empire, the whole force of 
the Tartar tribes seemed directed towards the west. An empire 
formerly powerful, the first monarchy of the Huns, had been 
overthrown by the Sienpi, at a distance of 500 leagues from the 
Roman frontier, and near to that of China, in the first century 
of the Christian era. Driven from their own country, the Huns 
had invaded their neighbours, and had pushed them onwards to- 
wards the west. But their wars and their conquests would have 
been confined within the wide plains of Tartary, had not the 
thousands of Roman captives, and the immense treasure carried 
off by the northern tribes, during the disastrous reign of Gallie- 
nus, been diffused by commerce over the whole north of Asia- 
The dexterity and talents of the slaves, the splendour of the 
costly stufi« exposed to sale in the markets of Tartary, tempted 
this warlike race to go in quest of similar treasures in the coun- 
tries where they were to be bought, not with gold, but with bloody 
and the recollection of former pillage was the great cause of the 
repetition of such incursions. 

The Tartar race is remarkable in the eyes of all others for its 
ugliness. A large head, a dun yellow complexion, small and 
sunken eyes, a flat nose, a thin and feeble beard, broad shoul- 
ders, and a short, square body, are the physical characteristics of 
the nation. The Tartars seem conscious of their own deformity: 
in all their treaties with conquered nations, they invariably ex- 
acted an annual tribute of young girls; and this intermixture of 
races has gradually corrected the hideousness of form among those 
established in milder climates. 

The first of this race known to the Romans were the Alani. 
In the fourth century they pitched their tents in the country be- 
tween the Volga and the Tanais, at an equal distance from the 
Black Sea and the Caspian. It does not appear that they struck 
the Europeans by their ugliness. But when the Taifalae, the 
Huns, the Hungarians, the Turks, successively showed them- 
selves upon their frontiers, the Greek writers expressed a feeling 

10 



70 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. III. 

of horror at their aspect, which their southern neighbours, the 
negroes and Abyssinians, had never excited among them. 

We now come to the barbarous tribes of Europe ^ — those with 
whom we are more immediately connected, and whose history it 
imports us the most to know. Three great races of men, differ- 
ing in language, habits, and religion, appear to have originally 
shared between them this western and northern portion of the 
ancient world — the Celts or Kelts, the Slavonians, and the Ger- 
mans. Historians have often confounded them, from that strange 
national vanity which led them to attribute to their progenitors 
the conquests and ravages of the neighbouring race: as if their 
own did not furnish them with enough of crimes and of cruelties. 
Of these three races, two, the Celtic and the Slavonic, were 
almost completely subjugated in the third century^ the third, on 
the contrary, was destined to triumph over Rome. The Celtic 
race had in part peopled Italy and Spain, where it had been 
blended with the Iberian, which was probably of African extrac- 
tion. It had also spread over Gaul and Great Britain. It had 
emerged from the first stage of barbarism | had built towns, had 
practised agriculture and some of the arts of life, had amassed 
riches, and established gradations of rank in cities, which indi- 
cate a structure of society, if not very scientific, at least very 
ancient. But the progress of the Celts in the career of improve- 
ment had been stopped by their submission to the oppressive yoke 
of a strongly organized body of priests. The Druids, jealous of 
every authority that did not emanate from themselves, established 
a reign of terror over a people whom it was their policy to ren- 
der ferocious. Their deities required continual streams of hu- 
man blood to be shed upon their altars. Their worship, performed 
in the depth of forests impervious to the sun, or in subterranean 
caverns, was marked by the most horrible rites. The country of 
the Carnuti, now called Chartres, was the centre of their power 
and the sanctuary of their religion. The mistletoe was regarded 
as the type of the Divinity, and was gathered by tliem yearly 
with solemn ceremonies. But the Celtic race had seldom been 
able to withstand the Roman arms. Augustus had forbidden the 
Druids to sacrifice human victims. Claudius had broken up their 
associations, abolished their institutions, and destroyed their sa- 
cred woods. All the men of the higher classes in Gaul, Spain, 
and Britain, had received a Roman education. They had re- 
nounced the language and the faith of their fathers^ the agricul- 



CHAP. III.] SLAVONIC TRIBES. 71 

tural population, whose condition was little better than that of 
slaves, had either perished from want, or had learned the lan- 
guage of their oppressors; and the Celtic race, once spread over 
a third part of Europe, had nearly disappeared. Their manners 
and their language were to be found only in a part of Armorica, 
or Little Britain, in the western parts of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, where the Roman domination was comparatively recent, 
and the numbers small; and, lastly, in the mountains of Caledo- 
nia, inhabited by the Scots, the only people of Celtic or Gaelic 
blood, who have retained their independence from the earliest 
times to the present day. 

The fate of the Slavonic tribes had not been mtich more pros- 
perous: they originally occupied the whole lUyrian peninsula, 
with the exception of Greece: its language is, in consequence, 
still called lUyrican. They had extended from the banks of the 
Danube and the Black Sea to the frozen ocean. Possessors of 
the most extensive plains of Europe, — plains which had been 
fertilized by deposites of the mud of mighty rivers,^ — the slaves 
were tillers of the ground from the remotest period. But the 
soil which fed, served to enchain them. They were not strong 
enough to defend its fruits, earned by the sweat of their brow, " 
and they did not choose to lose them. They were invaded by all 
their neighbours; to the south by the Romans, to the east by the 
Tartars, to the west by the Germans; and their very name, 
which, in their own tongue, signifies glorious, is become, in all 
modern languages, the badge of servitude; a remarkable monu- 
ment of the oppression of a great people, and of the abuse of 
victory on the part of all its neighbours. 

All the Slavonic nations, to the south of the Danube, had been 
subjugated by the Romans. It is possible, however, that, in the 
lofty mountains of Bosnia, Croatia, and Morlachia, a portion of 
this race which had never been civilized, might have preserved a 
wild kind of independence. Indeed, after the fall of the em- 
pire, we find traces of such a people; and it has retained to this 
day the language, the passion for war, the habits of violence and 
plunder, proper to the Slavonic tribes. To the north of the 
Black Sea, the Russians, one of the most powerful nations of 
this race, had not defended their fruitful plains against the inva- 
sion of the Alans, who were soon followed by the Huns, and 
other Tartar tribes. The Slavonians who occupied Russia and a 
part of Poland, were subject to the incursions of various tribes 
of the Gothic or Germanic family, which had issued forth from 



72 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. III. 

Scandinavia. In the fourth century, the Romans knew no other 
independent Slavonic people than the Quadi, the Sarmati, and 
Gepidse, who, with difficulty, preserved some remnant of their 
ancient territory in Bohemia and Poland. At that period, the 
Sarmatian horseman was esteemed more formidable for the ex- 
treme rapidity of his movements, than for his valour. He had 
usually two or three led horses, and changed as often as the one 
he rode was fatigued. In the absence of iron, he pointed his 
spears with bone hardened, and often poisoned. His cuirass was 
composed of laminse of horn placed closely over each other, like 
the scales of fish. Like the Cossack of the present day, he pre- 
ceded the most formidable armies, and shared in their successes, 
and in their plunder^ but he exhibited little bravery in attack, 
little firmness in defence, and inspired little terror. 

Lastly, the whole north of Europe was occupied by that great 
Germanic race from which the nations of modern Europe more im- 
mediately derive their origin. The Tartars had issued forth to 
destroy — the Germans advanced to conquer and to reconstruct: 
their very names are connected with our present existence. 
Saxons, Franks, Almains,* Burgundians, Lombards, either al- 
ready occupied, or were on the point of occupying, the countries 
in which we find them stilly they spoke a language which many 
among them still speak; they brought with them opinions, pre- 
judices, customs, of which there are abundant traces around us. 
Throughout the vast extent of Germania, in which Scandinavia 
must be included, the sentiment of haughty independence was 
predominant over every other, and had determined the national 
constitution and manners. The Germans were barbarians, but 
it was in some degree because they resolved to be so: they had 
set those first steps in the career of civilization which are gene- 
rally the most difficulty and there they stopped short, from the 
fear of compromising their liberty. The example of the Romans, 
with whom^ continual conflicts had brought them acquainted, had 
persuaded them that it was impossible to unite elegance and the 
pleasures of life, with the haughty and resolute independence 
they prized above all other possessions. They were not igno- 
rant of the useful arts,* they knew how to work in metal, and 
were expert and ingenious in the fabrication of their weapons; 
but they looked on every sedentary occupation with contempt. 

* I have used this nearly obsolete translation of Memands— which name 
of a tribe the French use to represent the whole race,— (ZVaw*.) 



CHAP. III.] GERMANIC TRIBES. 73 

They did not choose to shut themselves up within the walls of 
cities, which appeared to them the prisons of despotism. The 
Burgundians, who were then established on the shores of the 
Baltic, lost the respect of their countrymen, because they had 
consented to inhabit burgs (whence they derive their name,) and 
to exercise mechanical employments. The Germans practised 
agriculture; but, lest the labourer should become too strongly at- 
tached to the soil; lest by seizing his property, it might be possi- 
ble to secure his person; lest wealth should become the object of 
his desires, instead of military glory; not only did they resolve 
that the land should be distributed among all the citizens in 
equal portions, they also decreed that the portion each cultivated 
should be annually determined by lot, so as to render impossi- 
ble any local attachment. The effect of this was, of course, to 
render equally impossible any permanent improvement. The 
Teutonic tribes appear to have possessed a kind of written cha- 
racter, the Runic, but it seems that they used it only for inscrip- 
tions on wood or stone. The length of time required for works 
of this kind would, of course, render the use of it extremely 
rare; the inanimate object which, by the aid of these inscriptions, 
seemed to speak a language known only to the sage, appeared to 
the people endowed with a supernatural power; and the know- 
ledge of the Runes was looked upon as a branch of magic. 

The government of the Germans, so long as they inhabited 
their own country, was the freest of which we have any record. 
They had kings : the Romans, at least, translated the title konig 
by their own word rex, though the functions were widely diffe- 
rent. They were frequently hereditary, or were, at least, always 
chosen out of one family, the only one which had a common 
name. These kings, distinguished from their subjects by their 
long flowing hair, w^ere, however, in fact, only presidents of the 
councils of war or of justice, in which every citizen had a voice. 
They commanded all warlike expeditions; they presided over 
the distribution of the spoil; they proposed to the people the 
measures for their consideration; they kept up intercourse with 
neighbouring nations; but, if any weakness or vice rendered 
them unworthy to lead freemen, the war-axe soon executed jus- 
tice upon them: for it seems to have been the opinion among 
them, that pre-eminent honour must be bought by exposure to pre- 
eminent danger; and that the life of a king ought not to be 
hedged in with so many securities as that of a subject. In fact, 
almost every page of German history is stained by the murder of 



74 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. III. 

a king. But private citizens were not exposed to the same risks. 
Not only had the king no right to put them to death, but even 
the sovereign power of the Mallum, or assembly of the people, 
did not extend to that. The man from whom society withdrew 
its protection, was still at liberty to quit the country. Exile was 
the severest punishment the sovereign power could inflict. 

The Germans were obedient to no authority but that of their 
women and their priests. In the former, they acknowledged 
somewhat of a divine nature: they thought beauty must have a 
kind of inspiration, and they received the voice of their pro- 
phetesses as the voice of Heaven. The priests owed their influ- 
ence as much to their own policy as to the superstitious temper 
of the people. The northern divinities were warlike, and their 
example and their worship were more calculated to form the 
minds of their votaries to valour and independence than to fear. 
The unknown world, peopled with spirits who rose from the 
grave, who sat upon the clouds, whose wailings were heard float- 
ing in the night winds, and mingled with the voice of the storm, 
had been created or clothed with all their terrors by the German 
imagination. Nevertheless, this was not, strictly speaking, reli- 
gion. These superhuman powers were not those of the Deity 5 
their possessors were malevolent beings, whose perfidy was as 
much to be dreaded as their forces they were foes against whom 
it was necessary to contend 5 and the priests of Odin seemed 
hardly to have any succour to offer against that pale shadow, the 
dread king of the spirits of the forest, or the terrible Valkyries, 
who spun the thread of human destiny. 

The German priests were not united into a compact body^ 
they had not that rigorous organization and discipline which ren- 
dered the Druids so terrible, and gave such stability to their 
power. Nor did the German people seem to hold to their reli- 
gion with very ardent zeal; they were easily converted to Chris- 
tianity, whenever their kings set them the example ; and it is re- 
markable that, in the history of their conversions, we find no tra- 
dition of the opposition which it would have been natural to ex- 
pect from their priests. But the chiefs themselves appear to 
have turned the sacerdotal power to political account. They 
placed the police of the public meetings under the immediate 
protection of the gods; and the priest alone, under the authority 
of the king, ventured to inflict the punishment of death on any 
man who disturbed the deliberations of the national assembly or 
Mallum. This was only to be effected by treating the offence as 



CHAP. III.3 GERMANIC TRIBES. 75 

sacrilege, for no insult to the civil power would have subjected 
him to the sword of the law. 

The Germans who attacked the empire appeared under various 
names; and these names, sometimes abandoned, and sometimes 
resumed after a considerable lapse of time, throw a great confu- 
sion over the geography of ancient Germany, and the classifica- 
tion of nations who frequently shifted their place of abode. We 
shall only endeavour to recall to the minds of our readers a small 
number of the most remarkable. On the lower Rhine were the 
Eranks; on the upper, the Allemans; near the mouths of the 
Elbe, the Saxons: these three nations, who held possession of 
the land of their fathers, were all formed of confederations of 
small states, or tribes more ancient still, which had united for 
their common defence, and had dropped their original name 
about the middle of the third century, and taken generic names, 
such as Franken, or freemen, Allemannen; or all men: Sachsen, 
or Sassen, cultivators,* or, to take a cognate word in our own 
tongue, settlers. There were also Schwaben,t or wandering 
men. In each of these federative nations there were as many 
kings as small states; and, almost, as villages: but, for their 
most important expedition, or most dangerous wars, they all 
united round one common leader. 

On the shores of the Baltic, in Prussia and Central Germany, 
were found the Vandals, the Heruli, the Lombards, and the Bur- 
gundians, who were regarded as originally sprung from the same 
stem, and differing from the more western Germans in their dia- 
lect and in the form of their government: this was more purely 
military, and seemed to have been consolidated during migrations 
of which they retained only vague and uncertain traditions. 

Lastly, in Poland, and, more recently, in Transylvania, we 
find the great race of the Goths, who, issuing in three divisions 
from Scandinavia, first planted themselves near the mouths of 
the Vistula, and afterwards advanced southward as far as the 
banks of the Danube. The Wisigoths or West Goths, the Os- 
trogoths, or East Goths, and Gepidse (draggers,) formed these 
three divisions, who were distinguished among the Germanic 
tribes by superior cultivation of mind, gentler manners, and a 
greater disposition to advance in the career of civilization. We 
shall soon, however, see what was this gentleness, and what was 
the condition of civilized nations when they were reduced to 
place their last hope in Ostrogoths and Wisigoths. 

• ScutSi an inhabitant, f Schwebm to float. (Modern German.) Ti-anslator. 



( 76 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 



Division of the fourth Century into three Periods: 1. Reign of Constantinev 
2. Reig-ns of his Sons and Nephews. 3. Reigns of Valentinian and his 
Successors, down to Theodosius. — Character of Constantine. — His Wa- 
verings between Paganism and Christianity. — His Cruelties. — Six Empe- 
rors at once. — Final Union of the Empire under Constantine. — Extermi- 
nation of all his Rivals. — Foundation of Constantinople. — Murder of all 
his Kindred by Constantine. — His Zeal for the Church, — His Death. — Di- 
vision of the Empire among his three Sons. — Their Wars. — Constantius, 
the Survivor, exclusively occupied with religious Controversies. — 'Dona- 
tist and Circoncellion Sects, their Quarrels and Atrocities. — Religious Sui- 
cides. — Arian Controversy. — The Church equally divided. — Council of 
Nice.— Favours showed by Constantius to Arianism. — Opposition of St. 
Athanasius. — Conquests of Sapor H. in the East, and of the Franks and 
AUemans in the West. — Constantius confides to his Nephew Julian the 
Defence of the West. — Character of Julian. — His Attachment to the an- 
cient Religion. — His Victories and Death. 

After endeavouring to give some general notion of the inter- 
nal state of the Roman empire in its decline, of the revolution 
it had passed through, of the barbarians who hung over its fron- 
tiers, and menaced its existence, we come at length to the epoch 
which we have marked at the starting-point, whence to proceed 
in our examination of this portion of the middle or dark ages. 
This is the coronation of the emperor Constantine bj the legions 
of Britain, at York, on the 25th of July, a. d. 306, 

The limits assigned to works belonging to this series, do not, 
however, permit us to lay before our readers a complete detailed 
narrative of the fall of the Roman empire, and the establishment 
of the barbaric monarchies. This is to be found in several cele- 
brated writers, to whose voluminous works we might refer our 
readers, or, still better, to the study and comparison of the an- 
cient authorities. History can be effectually studied only in the 
seclusion of the closet^ in the patient examination of original 
writers, and the accurate collation of evidence. All that we can 
aflfect to accomplish in the narrow space assigned to us is, to bring 
together the most striking pictures, to try to arrange them dis- 
tinctly in the mind, and to show the general tendency of events. 
The most brilliant periods, the reigns which can be most easily 
studied in works devoted expressly to them, are precisely those 



CHAP. IV.] CONSTANTINE. 7*7 

which M'e shall think ourselves justified in passing over the most 
rapidly. But all have not leisure for such a course of study; 
and, perhaps, even for those who have passed through it, a brief 
recapitulation of the general facts will be useful, and may repair 
the losses, or correct the inaccuracies, of memory. 

The fourth century may be naturally divided into three periods, 
of nearly equal length. The reign of Constantine, from the year 
306 to SSr; that of his sons and his nephews, from 337 to 363; 
and the reigns of Valentinian, of his sons, and of Theodosius, 
from 364 to 395. During the first, the ancient empire of Rome, 
the empire of Augustus, gave place to a new monarchy, whose 
throne stood on the confines of Europe and of Asia, with other 
manners, another character, and another religion. During the 
second, this religion, passing from a state of persecution to one 
of sovereignty, experienced the fatal effects almost invariably at- 
tached to a prosperity too rapid, a power too recent. The vio- 
lence of religious dissensions, during this period, silenced all 
secular controversies, all political passions. During the third pe^ 
riod, the empire, shaken anew by the general attack of the bar- 
barians, narrowly escaped complete subversion. The following 
chapter is intended to give a sketch of the first two period^ 
only. 

We have seen that Diocletian, after appointing four heads to 
the military despotism which ruled the empire, induced his col- 
league, Maximian, to abdicate the throne at the same time with 
himself, on the 1st of May, a. d. 305. The two Csesars, Con- 
stantius Chlorus in Gaul, and Galerius in lUyricum, were then 
elevated to the rank of Augusti; while two new Csesars, Severus 
and Maximin, were appointed to second them. But from the mo- 
ment that Diocletian ceased to moderate the hatred and the jea- 
lousy of the subalterns whom he thought fit to honour with the 
name of colleagues, the government which he had given to the 
empire was a scene of constant confusion and civil war, till the 
period at which all the colleagues fell in succession, and gave 
place, in the year 323, to the solitary rule of Constantine. 

Constantine had not been called to the succession. Diocle- 
tian, partial to Galerius, his son-in-law, had left the nomination of 
the two new Caesars to him. Constantius Chlorus, who had led a 
division of the Gallic legions into Britain to oppose the incursions 
of the Caledonians, was then ill; and Galerius, sure of the sup- 
port of his two creatures, waited impatiently for the de^th of his 

11 



78 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

rival, to unite the whole Roman empire under his own sway. But 
the moderation and justice of Constantius had rendered him the 
more dear to the soldiers and tlie provincials under his command, 
from their contrast with the ferocity of his colleagues. At the 
moment of his death, the legions stationed at York, as a tribute 
of gratitude and affection to his memory, saluted his son Con- 
stantine with the title of Caesar, and decorated him with the pur- 
ple. Whatever resentment Galerius felt at this, he soon per- 
ceived the danger of engaging in a civil war. As the eldest of 
the emperors, and the representative of Diocletian, he recognised 
the authority of the colleague imposed upon him by the legions. 
He left him the administration of Gaul and Britain, but assigned 
to him only the fourth rank among the rulers of the empire, 
and the title of Caesar. Under this title Constantine adminis- 
tered the prefecture of Gaul for six years, (a. d. 306 — 312,) per- 
haps the most glorious and the most virtuous period of his life. 

Nature had endowed Constantine, then thirty years old, with 
qualities that command respect. His person was dignified, his 
countenance noble and gracious, his strength remarkable even 
among legionaries, and his courage brilliant even in the estima- 
tion of the bravest. Although his mind had not been formed by 
a liberal education, it was quick and facile; his conversation was 
lively, only he was too much addicted to raillery for a man whom 
it is impossible to rally in return. The grandeur of his concep- 
tions, the firmness of his character, and his consummate talents 
for war, gave him a high rank among generals and statesmen. 
Happy would it have been for him, if fortune, which with a rare 
constancy, favoured all his enterprises, had not, by her indul- 
gence, fostered and revealed his vices; if the height to which he 
attained had not made him giddy; if the drunkenness of abso- 
lute power had not altered his character; and if every advance 
towards the acquisition of a new power had not been outweighed 
by the loss of virtue. 

From the time of his elevation to the throne, Constantine wa- 
vered between paganism and Christianity; and throughout his 
prefecture he granted perfect toleration to all religious opinions. 
In this he only followed the example of his father, who had shel- 
tered the provinces under his rule from the persecutions of Dio- 
cletian. Gaul was, indeed, the part of the empire in which we 
find the fewest martyrs. The Christian religion had made very 
little progress there; but the tolerance of Constantine, contrast- 



CHAP. IV.] CONSTANTINE. 79 

ed with the ferocity of the persecutions of Galerius and the two 
Caesars, attracted a great number of refugees to the countries un- 
der his sway, and thus caused a rapid spread of the new religion 
in the West. 

After pacifying Britain, Constantine had led back his army 
into Gaul. He had lessened the weight of taxation 5 and we 
learn that the town of Autun expressed its gratitude to him, for 
lightening the pressure of the capitation, or poll-tax. The mo- 
ment the Franks encamped on the banks of the Rhine, and learned 
the death of his father, they crossed the river, and laid waste a 
part of Gaul. Constantine marched against them at the head of 
the British legions; defeated them; made a great number of pri- 
soners; and, at the celebration of the games in his capital of 
Treves, he caused these captives to be thrown to wild beasts. 
They were devoured before the eyes of a people by whom this 
spectacle was hailed with rapturous applause. Among the vic- 
tims, the most remarkable were two Frankish kings, Ascaric and 
Regais. This is the earliest tradition we have of the first race of 
sovereigns of France. 

It did not enter the mind of Constantine, nor of those by 
whom he was surrounded, that any humanity could be due to the 
vanquished, any compassion to barbaric kings. In a panegyric 
addressed to him, and recited in his presence,this act is especial- 
ly celebrated; and the torture inflicted on these two prankish 
kings is extolled above the most glorious of his victories. But 
Constantine was hereafter, and repeatedly, to shed blood far more 
sacred in his eyes; his ambition was untempered by pity, and his 
jealousy of power stifled the most powerful feelings of nature in 
his breast. 

During this time the senate and the people of Rome, aban- 
doned by all the emperors, who had fixed their residence in the 
provinces, irritated by the announcement of fresh taxes, con- 
ferred the rank of Augustus on Maxentius, son of Maximian, 
(a. d. 306,) who, like Constantine, had not been raised by Gale- 
rius to the rank of Caesar, to which he seemed to have claims. 
At this intelligence the aged Maximian, who had been reluctant- 
ly drawn into an abdication to which his constant restlessness 
continually gave the lie, hastened to resume the purple, in order 
to protect his son and to assist him with his counsels. He gave 
his daughter Fausta in marriage to Constantine, and conferred on 
him the title of Augustus; and he claimed from the whole West, 



80 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV- 

governed by his son and his son-in-law, that deference which 
those two princes owed to the eklest head of the empire, and the 
author of their own greatness. But love of power can ill be re- 
conciled in royal minds with the plebeian virtues of filial affec- 
tion and gratitude. The veteran, illustrious from his numerous 
victories, was driven out of Italy by his son Maxentiusj repulsed 
from lUyricum by his ancient colleague, Galerius; and permitted 
to take refuge in Gaul by Constantine, only on condition that he 
would a second time renounce the supreme power he had re- 
sumed. He lived for some time in the Narbonnese province^ but 
on the report of the death of Constantine, (probably spread by 
Maximian himself,) he once more resumed the purple. Constan- 
tine put himself at the head of his legions, and instantly marched to 
Marseilles, where he besieged Maximian, caused him to be deli- 
vered into his hands by the soldiers of the town, and to be stran- 
gled, (Feb. A. D. 310.) 

For two whole years the empire had had six emperors at a time, 
all recognised as legitimate. But the death of Maximian was fol- 
lowed by that of Galerius, in May, 311, after a dreadful illness. 
Four Augusti, of equal rank, now once more shared the four pre- 
fectures. Scarcely, however, had they proclaimed to the empire 
their union, when they began to plan each other's dethronement. 
Maxentius had exercised an odious tyranny over Italy and Afri- 
ca^ he had plundered, persecuted, and dishonoured the senate, 
which had placed him on the throne; and, while he gave himself 
up without reserve to shameful pleasures, he lavished the money 
he extorted from the citizens, by infamous confiscations, on the 
soldiers, on whom he placed his sole reliance. Maximin, who 
reigned over the East, was neither less cruel, nor less hateful to 
the people. Constantine oifered his alliance, and the hand of his 
sister, to Licinius, the third of the Augusti, who governed lUy- 
ricum, and abandoned to him the conquest of the East, reserving 
to himself that of Italy and Africa. He passed the Alps at the 
head of the Gallic legions: gained three great victories, at Turin, 
at Verona, and before the gates of Rome, over those of Maxen- 
tius, which that dastardly and effeminate ruler did not venture to 
command in person. After the third, which took place on the 3d 
of October, 312, the head of Maxentius, for whom Constantine 
had little reason to feel as a brother-in-law, was exhibited to tlie 
people, severed from the trunk. Constantine was received in 
Rome with acclamations; Africa acknowledged him, as well as 



CHAP. IV.] CONSTANTINE. 81 

Italy; and an edict of religious toleration, issued at Milan, ex- 
tended the advantages, hitherto enjoyed by Gaul alone, to this pre- 
fecture. Licinius vi^as not less successful against Maximin, and 
the use he made of his victory, perhaps, spared Constantine the 
commission of some crimes. Licinius put to death all the sons 
of Maximin, all the sons of Galerius, and all the sons of Seve- 
rus, that none might remain to carry into a private station the 
memory of their father's power. Even the wife and daughter of 
Diocletian, who were known to him only by the benefits he had 
received at their hands, and by the respect of the people, fell vic- 
tims to his ruthless ambition. He would suffer no rival claims to 
the throne, and he left nothing for Constantine to do in the work 
of extermination. The two allies and brothers-in-law, thus left 
masters of the field, immediately prepared for combat. In the 
first civil war, a. d. 315, Constantine wrested Illyricum from Li- 
cinius. After an interval of eight years, war was renewed. Li- 
cinius was beaten before Adrianople, on the Sd of July, 323, and 
the whole empire reeognised Constantine the Great as its mo- 
narch. 

Constantine was a native of the western provinces. He spoke 
their language; there he first distinguished himself by his victo- 
ries, and by a beneficent administration; there his name, and that 
of his father, were endeared to th^ people and to the soldiers. 
Nevertheless, one of the first uses he made of his victory was, 
to abandon these provinces for Greece, whither he went to build 
a new Rome, to which he laboured to transfer all the luxury and 
the privileges of the ancient city. The latter had long been re- 
garded with jealousy by the emperors. They dreaded a resi- 
dence in a town in which the people still remembered that the 
sovereign power had resided in them; in which every senator felt 
himself of higher nobility than the monarch; more familiar with 
those elegancies and refinements of manners which are the inde- 
lible mark of aristocratic birth, and the object of humiliating de- 
sire to those who can never acquire them. Constantine wished 
to have a capital more modern than the imperial dignity, a senate 
more recent than despotism. He wished for the pomp of Rome, 
without her recollections, without her means of resistance. He 
chose Byzantium, on the Bosphorus of Thrace; and the new ca- 
pital, which took its name from him, standing on the confines of 
Europe and of Asia, with a magnificent port open to the com- 
merce of the Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, has shown. 



82 'fall of the ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

by its long prosperity, by the invincible resistance it offered to its 
barbarian aggressors for a thousand years, how admirably saga- 
cious was the choice of its founder. 

But it was while occupied in watching the infant growth of 
Constantinople, (a. d. 329,) during the fourteen years of peace 
which closed his reign, that the hero descended to the common 
level of kings. As he approached the East, he adopted oriental 
manners; he affected the gorgeous purple of the monarchs of 
Persia; he decorated his head with false hair of different colours, 
and with a diadem covered with pearls and gems. He substi- 
tuted flowing silken robes, embroidered with flowers, for the au- 
stere garb of Rome, or the unadorned purple of the first Roman 
emperors. He filled his palace with eunuchs, and lent an ear to 
their perfidious calumnies; he became the instrument of their 
base intrigues, their cupidity, and their jealousy. He multiplied 
spies, and subjected the palace and the empire, alike, to a suspi- 
cious police. He lavished the wealth of Rome on the steril 
pomp of s lately buildings. He reduced the legions from 6000 
men to 1000 or 1500, through jealousy of those to whom he must 
have given the command of these formidable bodies. Lastly, he 
poured out the best and noblest blood in torrents, more especially 
of those nearly connected with himself. 

The most illustrious victim of his tyranny was Crispus, his 
son by his first wife, whom he had made the partner of his em- 
pire, and the commander of his armies. Crispus was at the head 
of the administration of Gaul, where he gained the hearts of the 
people by his virtue. In the war against Licinius, he had dis- 
played singular talents, and had secured victory to the arms of 
Constantine. From that moment, a shameful and unnatural jea- 
lousy stifled every paternal feeling in the bosom of the monarch. 
The acclamations of the people sounded in his ears like the tri- 
umphs of a rival, and not the successes of a son. He detained 
Crispus within the palace, he surrounded him with spies and in- 
formers. At length, in the month of July, 326, he ordered him 
to be arrested in the midst of a grand festival, to be carried off 
to Pola in Istria, and there to be put to death. A cousin of Cris- 
pus, the son of Licinius and of Constantine's favourite sister, 
was, at the same time, sent, without trial, without even accusa- 
tion, to the block. His mother implored his life in vain, and 
died of grief. Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, the wife of 
Constantine, and the mother of the three princes who succeeded 



CHAP. IV .3 SONS OF CONSTANTINE. 83 

him, was shortly after stifled in the bath by order of her hus- 
band. 

In a palace which he had made a desert, the murderer of his 
father-in-law, his brothers-in-law, his sister, his wife, his son, 
and his nephew, must have felt the stings of remorse, if hypo- 
critical priests and courtier bishops had not lulled his conscience 
to rest. We still possess the panegyric in which they represent 
him as a favourite of Heaven, a saint worthy of our highest ve- 
neration; we have also several laws by which Constantine atoned 
for all his crimes, in the eyes of the priests, by heaping bound- 
less favours on the church. The gifts he bestowed on it, the 
immunities he granted to persons and to property connected with 
it, soon directed ambition entirely to ecclesiastical dignities. 
The men who had so lately been candidates for the honours of 
martyrdom, now found themselves depositaries of the greatest 
wealth and the highest power. How was it possible that their 
characters should not undergo a total change? Nevertheless, 
Constantine himself was hardly a Christian. Up to the age of for- 
ty, (a. d. 314^) he had continued to make public profession of pa- 
ganism, although he had long favoured the Christians. His devo- 
tion was divided between Apollo and Jesus; and he adorned the 
temples of the ancient gods and the altars of the new faith with 
equal offerings. Cardinal Baronius severely censures the edict 
by which (a. d. 321) he commanded that the haruspices should 
be consulted. But, as he advanced in age, Constantino's confi- 
dence in the Christians increased: he gave up to them the undi- 
vided direction of his conscience and the education of his chil- 
dren. When he felt the attacks of the disease which terminated 
his life at the age of sixty-three, he was formally received into 
the bosom of the Church as a catechumen, and a few days after- 
wards was baptized, immediately before his death. He expired 
at Nicomedia, May 22, 337", after a reign of thirty -one years 
from the death of his father, and of fourteen from the conquest 
of the East. 

During the whole course of his reign, Constantine had strug- 
gled to reunite the divided members of the empire. His own 
experience had taught him what jealousy absolute power excited 
among colleagues; what a feeble security is given to treaties be- 
tween princes by the ties of blood: yet, at his death, he once 
more divided the empire. Indeed, for several years, he had sent 
his three sons and two nephews to serve their apprenticeship in 



84 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. IV. 

the art of ruling, at the expense of the provinces they were here- 
after to govern as independent chiefs. Constantine, the eldest 
of the young princes, twenty-one years of age, reigned in the 
province of Gaul. Constantius, a year younger, remained with 
his father, and was the destined ruler of the East. Constans, a 
youth of seventeen, was sent into Italy, which, together with 
Africa, was to be subject to him. Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, 
the emperor's two nephews, were to inherit Thrace and Pontus as 
their share. Scarcely had he breathed his last, when his two el- 
der sons set about to destroy his work. Constantius artfully en 
ticed his two cousins to his court, and excited the jealousy of the 
army against them. The bishop of Nicomedia produced a forged 
will of the emperor, in which he expressed a suspicion that he 
had been poisoned by liis brothers, and recommended his son to 
avenge him. Under pretext of obeying this injunction, in less 
than four months after his father's death, Constantius put to 
death two of his uncles, seven of his cousins, among whom were 
his two colleagues, and a great number of other distinguished 
persons, allied in some way or other to the imperial family. 
Two children alone, Gallus and Julian, nephews of Constantine 
the Great, were snatched by a pious hand from this butchery. 

Constantius had thus usurped the inheritance of his two cou- 
sins. Constantine II. determined on seizing that of his youngest 
brother. In the third year of his reign, he made a descent upon 
Italy, in order to dethrone Constans; but, having been surprised 
by an ambuscade, he was put to death, by order of his brother, 
on the 9th of April, 340. Constans v/as, consequently, acknow- 
ledged emperor of Gaul as well as of Italy. After a reign of 
ten years, he was assassinated in the Pyrenees, February 27, 350, 
by Magnentius, the captain of his guards, who succeeded him. It 
was not till three years afterwards that Constantius succeeded in 
recovering the West, the empire of his two brothers, from Mag- 
nentius. 

This chronology of murders is nearly all that remains of the 
civil history of these three princes. Neither patriots, nor men 
whose object was personal aggrandizement, could find any satis- 
faction in devoting themselves to political affairs. During the 
whole of tills period, therefore, they were forgotten, and the 
minds of men were completely engrossed by the religious dis- 
putes which presented new fuel to the passions. It was by sec- 
tarian violence alone that man could gain aft'ection from the peo- 



CHAP. IV.] DONATIST CONTROVERSY. 85 

pie or consideration from the court. It vras by theological sub- 
tleties alone, that he could hope to move the popular passions. 
Those vi^ho could not be induced, nor constrained, to take up 
arms to defend property, life, or honour against the barbarians, 
eagerly seized them to force their fellow- citizens to think with 
themselves. All the temples of paganism were still standing, 
more than half the subjects of the empire still professed the an- 
cient faith; and yet already does the history of the people over 
whom the sons of Constantine reigned, consist of little else than 
the contentions between sects of Christians. 

Two great theological dissensions had broken out at the very 
moment at which Constantine put a stop to persecution, and 
while Licinius was still endeavouring to crush the church in the 
East. Both had a long and fatal influence on the destinies of 
the empire; yet the first, that of the Donatists of Africa, seems 
so futile, that it is impossible to explain the importance attached 
to it by the people, except from the novelty of religious disputes, 
and the universal disposition towards religious fanaticism which 
had been excited by passionate declamation. The Donatist con- 
troversy was not one of doctrine, but of ecclesiastical discipline; 
the contested election for the archbishopric of Carthage. Two 
competitors, Cecilius and Donatus, had been concurrently elect- 
ed while the church was yet in a depressed state, and Africa sub- 
ject to the tyrant Maxentius. Scarcely had Constantine subdued 
that province, when the two rivals referred their dispute to him. 
Constantine, who still publicly professed paganism, but had 
shown himself very favourable to the Christians, instituted a 
careful examination of their respective claims which lasted from 
the year 312 to 315, and finally decided in favour of Cecilius. 
Four hundred African bishops protested against this decision; 
from that time they were designated by the name of Donatists. 
Their number shows the progress the new faith had already made 
in Mauritania and Numidia. We must observe, however, that 
it appears nearly certain that, in Africa, every parish was under 
the spiritual government, not of a curate, but of a bishop. 

In compliance with an order of the emperor, solicited by Ce- 
cilius, the property of the Donatists was seized and transferred 
to the antagonist body of the clergy. They revenged themselves 
by pronouncing sentence of excommunication against all the rest 
of the Christian world, and declaring, that whoever did not be- 
lieve the election of Donatus to be canonical, would be everlast- 

12 - 



86 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

ingly damned. They even compelled all whom they converted 
from the hostile sect to be rebaptized, as if they were not Chris- 
tians. Persecution on the one side, and fanaticism on the other, 
were perpetuated through three centuries, up to the period of the 
extinction of Christianity in Africa. The wandering preachers 
of the Donatist faction had no other means of living than the 
alms of their flocks; their influence and consideration, therefore, 
depended solely on their power of heating the imaginations and 
working on the fears of the feeble-minded, and thus gradually 
diff"using over the whole congregation that moral contagion which 
they began by exciting in women and children. As might be ex- 
pected, they outdid each other in extravagance, and soon gave 
into the most frantic ravings: thousands of peasants, drunk with 
the effect of these exhortations, forsook their ploughs and fled to 
the deserts of Getulia. Their bishops, assuming the title of cap- 
tains of the saints, put themselves at their head, and they rushed 
onwards, carrying death and desolation into the adjacent pro- 
vinces; they were distinguished by the name of Circumcelliones: 
Africa was devastated by their ravages. They, in their turn, 
were delivered over to the most cruel torments whenever they 
fell into the hands of the imperial oflicers or the orthodox party, 
in the hope that the severity of these examples would intimidate 
their followers. Such measures, however, were perfectly unsuc- 
cessful, since the palm of martyrdom was the object of their most 
ardent desires. Persuaded that the most acceptable offering 
they could make to the Deity was their own lives, they frequent- 
ly stopped the affrighted traveller, and, holding a dagger to his 
breast, demanded of him to put them to death. Often with arms 
in their hands they forced their way into the courts of justice, 
and compelled the judges to send them to torture and to death. 
Often they put an end to their own existence. Those who 
thought themselves sufficiently prepared for martyrdom, assem- 
bled their numerous congregations at the foot of some rock or 
lofty tower; and there, in the midst of prayers and the chanting 
of litanies, they threw themselves, one after another, from the 
height, and expired on the ground below. 

The other theological contest arose out of causes more ele- 
vated and weighty, but, at the same time, more inscrutable, and 
impossible to determine. It has divided the church from the se- 
cond century of its existence; it will, perhaps, divide it to the 
end of time. This is, the controversy on the mystery of the 



CHAP. IV.] TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 87 

Trinity. The word Trinity is found neither in the Holy Scrip- 
tures nor in the writings of the first Christians; but it had beea 
employed from the beginning of the second century, when a 
more metaphysical turn had been given to the minds of men, 
and theologians had begun to attempt to explain the divine na- 
ture. Alexandria was one of the first cities in which the Chris- 
tian religion had made proselytes among the higher classes of so- 
ciety. Those who had received their education in the Platonic 
schools which flourished in that great city, sought in the Scrip- 
tures a new light on the questions wliich had recently been agi- 
tated among them. The dogma of a mysterious trinity, which 
constituted the Divine essence, had been taught by the pagan 
Platonists of Alexandria. It seems to have sprung from the as- 
tonishment which the mathematical properties of numbers had 
excited in the minds of students of the abstract sciences. They 
thought they discovered something divine in these properties; 
and the power which numbers exercised over calculations ap- 
peared to them to extend over regions far removed from their ac- 
tual influence. This illusion has been revived in every age of 
imperfect science. The new Platonic converts employed the 
terms of their peculiar system of philosophy, in the exposition 
of the dogmas of the Christian faith. 

But whatever were the origin of these speculations, the ques- 
tion had no sooner descended from the lofty regions of metaphy- 
sical abstraction, to be applied to an explanation of the nature of 
Jesus Christ, than it acquired an importance which no Christian 
can contest. The Founder of the new religion, the Being who 
had brought upon earth a divine light, was he God, was he man, 
v/as he of an intermediate nature, and, though superior to all 
other created beings, yet himself created.^ This latter opinion 
was held by Arius, an Alexandrian priest, who maintained it in 
a series of learned controversial works between the years 318 
and 325. As soon as the discussion had quitted the walls of the 
schools, and been taken up by the people, mutual accusations of 
the gravest kind took the place of metaphysical subtleties. The 
orthodox party reproached the Arians with blaspheming the Dei- 
ty himself, by refusing to acknowledge him in the person of 
Christ. The Arians accused the orthodox of violating the funda- 
mental law of religion, by rendering to the creature the worship 
due only to the Creator. Both maintained, with a show of rea^ 
son, that their adversaries overturned the very foundations of 



88 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

Christianity, — the one party by denying the divinity of the Re- 
deemer, the other the unity of the Governor of the universe. 
The two opinions appeared so nicely balanced, that they were 
alternately triumphant, and it was difficult to decide which num- 
bered the largest body of followers^ but the ardent enthusiastic 
spirits, the populace in all the great cities, (and especially at 
Alexandria,) the women, and the newly -founded order of the 
monks of the desert, who had subjugated the force of their rea- 
son by a life of continual solitude and contemplation, were al- 
most without exception, partisans of the faith which has since 
been declared orthodox. The contrary opinion appeared to them 
an insult to the object of their most passionate devotion. That 
opinion, — the Arian heresy, as it was called, — was embraced by 
all the new Christians of the Germanic tribes; by the people of 
Constantinople, and by a large portion of Asia; by the great ma- 
jority of the dignitaries of the church, and by the depositaries of 
the civil authority. 

Constantine thought this question of dogma might be decided 
by an assembly of the whole church. In the year 325, he con- 
voked the council of Nice, at which 300 bishops pronounced in 
favour of the equality of the Son with the Father, or the doctrine 
generally regarded as orthodox, and condemned the Arians to 
exile, and their books to the flames. In spite of this decision, 
the Arian opinion appeared three years afterwards to prevail 
among the whole clergy of the East. It was sanctioned by a 
synod at Jerusalem, and protected by the emperor. When Con- 
stantius ascended the throne, all the bishops and courtiers by 
whom he was surrounded had adopted the opinions of Arius, and 
had communicated them to him. The emperor, abandoning all 
other cares, in order to devote himself exclusively to religious 
controversy, became a mere theologian, and remained so during 
the whole of his long reign. He employed his court and wore 
out his own intellect in finding expressions fitted for the shades 
of his belief, and the fluctuations of his sentiments. Every year 
he convoked some fresh synod or council; he removed bishops 
from their flocks; he destroyed religion in favour of theology; 
and as the bishops whom he was continually summoning from 
one province to another, travelled at the public cost, the multi- 
plicity of councils became a ruinous charge on the imperial trea- 
sury. But a formidable adversary appeared, who opposed him 
with firmness, and rendered his efforts powerless. This was St. 



CHAP. IV.] JULIAX. 89 

Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, who \5jas regarded as head 
of the orthodox party from the year 326^Jtb 373. He met perse- 
cution with unshaken constancy, communicated his own zeal to 
the fanatical populace of Alexandf ia and the monks of the de- 
sert| and, after a long struggle/Detween popular commotions and 
military persecutions, at lenafth secured victory to his party. 

During the whole of the ipigns of the three sons of Constan- 
tine, historians scarcely sejem to have regarded any thing as 
worthy of their notice save '^ecclesiastical disputes; nor did the 
sovereign seem to think his station and office imposed any duty 
upon him more imperative than that of engaging in the ranks of 
controversy. But the people had more than one occasion to feel 
that they needed protection from other perils than those of here- 
sy. During the whole of this period the East was exposed to the 
attacks of Sapor II., king of Persia, whose long reign, from 310 
to 380, by a singular destiny, had begun some months before his 
birth. On the death of his father Hormidas, his mother declared 
herself pregnant. She was presented to the adoration of the peo- 
ple reclining on a bed of state; and the crown, which was placed 
on the bed by the magi, was supposed to cover the head of the 
child the nation hoped to receive from her. Sapor II. evinced 
much more talents and courage than could be expected from a 
king born on the throne. He made repeated incursions into the 
Roman provinces of the East. In 348, he defeated Constantius 
in a great battle at Singara, near the Tigris. But his invasions 
were always checked by the fortress of Nisibis, the bulwark of 
the East. Thrice he besieged it with all his forces, and was 
thrice repulsed. 

From the time of the death of the two brothers of Constantius, 
the West had suffered yet more severely. In order to reconquer 
it from the usurper Magnentius, that emperor had incited the 
Germanic nations to attack the northern frontier of Gaul, at the 
moment when civil war compelled Magnentius to leave the Rhine 
unprotected, and to march his legions into Illyricum. The Franks 
and AUemans consequently poured down, the former on Belgium, 
the latter on Alsace, and plundered and burnt forty-five of the 
most flourishing cities of either Gaul. Their cruelty inspired 
such terror, that no one throughout the remainder of the province 
dared to quit the shelter of the cities. Within the walls, the in- 
habitants cultivated portions of land amid the ruins, and trusted 
for subsistence to the produce of fields thus cleared by the de- 



90 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. |^CHAP. IV, 

vastating hand of the invader. But 13,000 soldiers remained to 
defend the whole extent of Gaul against these torrents of barba- 
riansj all the magazines, all the arsenals were emptied 5 the trea- 
sury was exhausted; the persons upon whom the burdens of the 
state rested, reduced to the uttermost distress, fled and aban- 
doned their lands, rather than submit any longer to fiscal vexa- 
tions. The defence of the West seemed to have become nearly 
impossible, when, in the year 355, Constantius intrusted it to his 
cousin Julian. The fury of persecution which he had exercised 
against his family had vented itself. He had promised to suifer 
his two cousins to live; and as he had now reached the middle 
of life without natural successors, he had resolved on delegating 
some authority to these his nearest relatives. In 351, he had 
granted the dignity of Caesar to Gallus, the brother of Julian, 
and had sent him to Antioch; but as the power with which he 
was invested had called forth nothing but vice, Constantius re- 
called him in December, 354, and caused him to be beheaded in 
prison. A few months afterwards he invested the last survivor 
of this once numerous family with a similar authority, and gave 
him Oaul to govern. 

Julian had known nothing of his exalted station but its expo- 
sure to more terrible calamity; but this had tried his courage, 
and fortified his soul. He had sought consolation in the philoso- 
phy of Greece, and in the study of antiquity. He had com- 
pared the virtues of former ages with the vices and crimes of his 
own time, and of the race whence he sprang; and, from a spirit 
of opposition to all that surrounded him, he had attached himself 
the more ardently to the religion of his fathers. He embraced 
polytheism with a fervour rare among its followers; with a super- 
stitious devotion seemingly incompatible with his philosophical 
turn. But his religion had undergone a refining process, of which 
himself was not conscious, from its collision with Christianity. 
He had adopted many of the sublimest truths of the very faith 
he combated; and he thought he found them slightly veiled be- 
neath the allegories of paganism. To him the interpreters of the 
antique gods were not the vulgar oracles of priests, but the di- 
vine writings of Plato and other philosophers; and the faith so 
lately dominant was endeared to him by its present persecutions; 
as the unfortunate become objects of sympathy to generous minds, 
even at the expense of justice and of reason. 

In the schools of Athens, in the pursuit of philosophy, and in 



CHAP. IV.] JULIAN. 91 

the study of the ancients, Julian had acquired a knowledge of 
men and of things which none but a vast and commanding ge- 
nius can obtain from theory alone. Passing from the most pro- 
found retirement to the command of an army and the government 
of a disorganized province, surrounded by spies and informers, 
who watched that they might destroy him, ill obeyed by his su- 
balterns, ill seconded by his cousin's government, he raised up 
the humbled majesty of the empire in two glorious campaigns, 
(a. d. 356 — 357.) He defeated the AUemans at Strasburg, and 
drove them across the Rhine: during the three following years, 
he penetrated three several times into Germany: he struck ter- 
ror into the Allemans, recalled the Franks to their ancient al- 
liance, and admitted the bravest of their soldiers into his own 
ranks. He also enlisted the Gauls, who, at length, felt the ne- 
cessity of defending their country and their personal existence. 
He restored ruined cities, filled the treasury, while he reduced 
the most oppressive taxes by two-thirds, and inspired the inhabi- 
tants of the West with an enthusiasm which was not unattended 
with danger to himself. The court of Byzantium had begun by 
ridiculing the philosopher turned general; but this soon gave way, 
in the mind of Constantius, to a feeling of bitter jealousy. In the 
account he rendered to the provinces of the victories obtained in 
Gaul, the emperor, who had never quitted the walls of Constan- 
tinople, took the credit of all these successes. It was he, as his 
proclamations affirmed, who, by his prudence, his valour, and hig 
military talents, had repulsed the Germans. Julian was not even 
named. 

The emperor's jealousy soon displayed itself by other signs. 
Sapor still hovered over the eastern frontier, and menaced it with 
fresh invasions. Constantius ordered the Gallic legions to aban- 
don the Rhine and march to defend the Euphrates. This was 
to leave both countries without defence during a whole campaign; 
for it was impossible to accomplish such a march in less time. 
But Constantius was mainly bent on separating the Caesar from 
his old companions in arms; and he anticipated a sweet revenge 
from the discontent of the legions, compelled to quit the chilling 
plains of Belgium for the burning sands of Mesopotamia. But 
he had not calculated on all the eflfects of this measure. The 
barbarians, whose enthusiasm for Julian had led them to enlist 
under his banner, the Gauls, who had shaken ojff their habitual 
sloth in defence of their hearths, refused to traverse the entire 



92 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

Roman world at the capricious order of the emperor. They 
mutinied, saluted Julian with the title of Augustus, raised him 
aloft on a buckler, encircled his brow with the collar of a soldier, 
in default of a diadem^ and then declared that thej were ready 
to march into the East, not to gratify the vengeance of a jealous 
master, but to escort their adored chief as victor. Julian yielded 
to their enthusiasm. He set out towards Illyricum; but the death 
of Constantius, which happened on the 3d of November, 361, and 
which he learned half-way, averted the horrors of a civil war. 
Julian was acknowledged with joy throughout the empire. 

He publicly returned thanks for his success to the ancient gods, 
and restored the pomp of pagan worship, which had not yet be- 
come an object of the persecution directed against heretics. He 
admitted all the contending sects of Christians to an equal tole- 
rancej but this tolerance was mingled with sarcasms and expres- 
sions of contempt; and he endeavoured to undermine the foun- 
dations of a church which he dared not attempt to overthrow by 
violence. He prohibited Christians from entering the schools of 
grammar and of rhetoric: removed them from places of trust, 
and apportioned his favour to the zeal displayed in favour of po- 
lytheism. He soon achieved numerous conversions among those 
who are the faithful followers of power, and who have no other 
religion than the pleasure of the master. 

Mean while Julian was impatient to drive the barbarians from 
the East, as he had already expelled them from the West. The 
whole remaining portion of his short reign was devoted to the 
preparations for his campaign against Sapor. To this end he re- 
paired to Antioch, where he passed the winter of the year 362. 
At the commencement of the year 363, he marched to the inva- 
sion of Mesopotamia. But it was already obvious that he had 
not escaped the corrupting influence of power and prosperity. 
Deceived by the blind obedience of courtiers, he thought he 
could exercise the same haughty sway over those who were not 
dependent upon him. He offended the Arabs, at the very mo- 
ment when he stood in need of their aid, by refusing the custo- 
mary presents, and alienated the Armenians by openly con- 
temning their religious opinions. He even fancied he could rise 
superior to the laws of nature, and command the elements. In 
spite of the remonstrances of his generals, he advanced into the 
sandy deserts, in which his army was exposed to thirst, fatigue, 
and a burning sun. It is true that these dangers once more re- 



CHAP. IV.] JULIAN. 93 

vealed the great and heroic qualities which prosperity had ob- 
scured. On every occasion he set his soldiers an example of that 
courage v^^hich endures privations, as well as of that which braves 
the fight. Never did he meet the enemy without defeating him. 
But Sapor, who did not choose to face the formidable and victo- 
rious legions of Gaul, harassed them with his light cavalry, and 
retreated without suffering the enemy to come up with him. Af- 
ter passing the Tigris, Julian, with his panting legions, traversed 
the whole territory of Bagdad, where he was misled by treache- 
rous guides. On the verge of the horizon he saw a village or a 
city, in which he hoped to find some repose, some provisions; but 
as soon as he approached, devouring flames, kindled by the inha- 
bitants themselves, consumed dwellings and stores, and he found 
only a heap of ashes. At length, on the 16th of June, 363, he 
was compelled to order a retreat. This was the signal for the 
approach of the Persians; the light cavalry was seconded by ele- 
phants, and by the heavy iron-barbed cavalry. Every march was- 
a combat; every wood, every hill, concealed an ambuscade. Oft 
the 26th of June, the Romans being still at a considerable dis- 
tance from the Tigris, a general attack led Julian to hope that he 
might still conquer the enemy who had always avoided the open 
fields. TVhile, with his advanced guard, he received the intel- 
ligence that his rear-guard had been thrown into disorder by a 
charge of cavalrv. He flew to its succour with no other arms 
than his buckler. The Persians fled, but Julian was struck by 
an arrow from the bow of one of those horsemen, who were ne- 
ver more formidable than in their flight. It had passed through 
the ribs, and transfixed the liver. As he tried to draw it out of 
the wound, another arrow pierced his fingers. He fell from his 
horse, fainting and bathed in his blood, and in that state was car- 
ried to his tent. As soon as he recovered his senses he called 
for his horse and his arms, and insisted on going to cheer on his 
comrades, many of whom he had seen trampled and crushed un- 
der the feet of the elephants. But it was too late: the blood 
which flowed in fresh torrents, soon exhausted his remaining 
strength. Being unable to raise himself, and conscious that the 
feebleness of death was upon him, he asked the name of the 
country where he had fallen. Phrygia, was the reply. — ** It is 
there that my death was foretold^" said he. " My destiny is ac- 
complished." 



94 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IV. 

His friends pressed around him. He to whom we are indebt- 
ed for all these details, — the last of the illustrious soldiers who 
wrote in Latin the contemporaneous history of the Romans, Am- 
mianus Marcellus, was present. They were in tears^ and yet 
news had come to his tent, that the Romans, infuriated at his 
loss, had already wortliily revenged him; that Sapor's army had 
taken to flight; that his two generals, fifty satraps, most of the 
elephants, and the bravest warriors of Persia were slain; that if 
Julian could once more lead on the army, the victory would be 
decisive. 

*' Friends, and brothers-in-arms," said Julian, " the time for 
me to retire from life is come. As an honourable debtor I ought 
to render back to nature, who claims her own, that soul which 
she intrusted to me. I have too well learned of philosophy how 
superior is the soul to the body, now to afilict myself, nay, rather 
not to rejoice, that the nobler part regains its liberty. Have not 
the gods themselves sometimes granted death to the most pious 
of mortals, as the highest recompense of their virtue.^ This fa- 
vour I am very sensible they have granted me to-day, that I 
might not sink under the difficulties which surround us — that I 
might not fall into any base or prostrate condition. As to the 
pains of the body, they overcome cowards, but they yield to the 
force of the will. I do not repent of my actions; I feel not in 
my conscience remorse for any great crime — neither when, hid- 
den in the shade, I laboured to form my character and correct 
my faults, nor since the empire has been bestowed upon me. I 
flatter myself that I have kept spotless this soul which we receive 
from Heaven, and which has its source and its kindred there. 
I have sought to exercise moderation in civil government, nor 
have I ever undertaken or declined war without a careful exa- 
mination of my rights. But success depends not on our coun- 
sels; it is for the celestial powers to direct the event of what we 
do but begin. I have ever thought that the end of a' just autho- 
rity ought to be the advantage and safety of those who obey; I 
have, therefore, sought to guard all my actions from that arbitra- 
ry license which is equally injurious to affairs and corrupting to 
morals. I render thanks to that Eternal Divinity which decreed 
before my birth that I should not fall a victim to clandestine toils, 
nor to the pains, the diseases, of the violent deaths which have 
been the lot of all my race; but has granted me a glorious exit 
from this world in the midst of a career of prosperity. My ebb- 



CHAP. IV.] DEATH OF JULIAN. 95 

ing strength does not permit me to say more. I think it prudent 
not to influence your choice in the nomination of an emperor. I 
might fail to distinguish the most worthy. I might expose to pe- 
ril him whom I should point out to your suffrages, and whom you 
might not approve. My only desire is, that the republic may 
have a worthy head." 

With his small remaining strength, Julian endeavoured to dis- 
tribute his effects among the friends who surrounded him. He 
did not see among them Anatolius, to whom he wished to leave 
some token of remembrance. He also is happy, replied Sallus- 
tius; and Julian shed, for the fate of his friend, those tears which 
he denied to his own. All attempts to stop a fresh effusion of 
blood had been vain. Julian asked for a cup of cold water, and 
having drunk it, instantly expired. 

Jovian, whom the army appointed his successor, bought the 
permission to effect a disastrous retreat, by abandoning to Sapor 
five provinces of Armenia, with the fortress of Nisibis, the bul- 
wark of the Eastern empire. 



( 96 ) 



CHAPTER V. 

Jovian. — Depression of the Pagans. — Calamitous Period embraced by 
this Chapter. — Death of Jovian. — Election of Valentinian. — His Charac- 
ter. — Grinding Taxation. — Successes of the Roman Arms. — Feebleness of 
Valens. — Hermanric. — Gothic Empire in Dacia. — Death of Valentinian. — 
Gratian, Emperor of the West.— Invasion of Dacia by the Huns. — Horror 
inspired by their Aspect. — Defeat of the Goths. — They cross the Danube 
and take Refuge in the Empire. — Pei-fidy and Cruelty of Valens. — Re- 
volt of the Goths. — Death of Valens. — Massacre of the Gothic Hostages. — 
Vengeance taken by Fritigem.— The Eastern Empire without a Head. — 
Theodosius the Great chosen as Colleague, and proclaimed by Gratian. — 
His Talents and Wisdom. — The Goths induced to lay down Arms. — Moesia 
ceded to them. — Their Civilization. — Ulphilas. — Influence of the Franks 
at the Court of Gratian. — Death of Gratian. — Character of Theodosius. — 
Persecution of the Arians. — Discouragement of Paganism. — St. Gregory 
of Nazianzen. — St. Ambrose. — St. Martin. — Death of Theodosius. —a. d. 
S64— 395. 

Every fresh revolution that agitated the empire, urged it an- 
other downward step into the abyss which was destined soon to 
ingulf it. Julian's imprudent endeavour to re-establish a reli- 
gion which had received its death-stroke, to weaken the influence 
of one which he attacked by a covert persecution, and by a sys- 
tem of injustice, excited the most violent resentment among his 
Christian subjects, and exposed his name to accusations and ca- 
lumnies which have stained his memory to this day. When his 
successor, Jovian, who did not reign long enough to lead back to 
Constantinople the army which he had marched from the banks 
of the Tigris, made public profession of Christianity, he, at the 
same time, displaced a great number of brave officers and able 
functionaries, whom Julian had promoted in proportion to their 
zeal for paganism. From that period, up to the fall of the em- 
pire, a hostile sect, which regarded itself as unjustly stripped of 
its ancient honours, invoked the vengeance of the gods on the 
heads of the government, exulted in the public calamities, and 
probably hastened them by its intrigues, though inextricably in- 
volved in the common ruin. 

The pagan faith, which was not attached to a body of doctrine, 
nor supported by a corporation of priests, nor heightened by the 



CHAP, v.] DOWNFAL OF PAGANISM. 97 

fervour of novelty, scarcely ever displayed itself in open revolt, 
or dared the perils of martyrdom ^ but pagans still occupied the 
foremost rank in letters: — the orators, the philosophers, (or, as 
they were otherwise called, sophists,) the historians, belonged, 
almost without an exception, to the ancient religion. It still 
kept possession of the most illustrious schools, especially those 
of Athens and Alexandria^ the majority of the Roman senate 
were still attached to it^ and in the breasts of the common peo- 
ple, particularly the rural population, it maintained its power for 
several centuries, branded, however, with the name of magic, a 
name eagerly given to a fallen religion which persecution forces 
into concealment. If the pagans wished that their dishonoured 
faith should be avenged on their fellow citizens and on them- 
selves, they might enjoy this melancholy consolation in the thirty- 
two years, the events of which we are now about to retrace — the 
years which elapsed from the death of Julian to that of the great 
Theodosius (a. d. 363 — 395.) This period, though it produced 
some distinguished leaders, was marked by dreadful and atrocious 
calamities. The talents, even the genius, of some emperors, no 
longer sufficed to save the civilized v/orld from the attacks of its 
barbarian foes, or from the more formidable peril of its own in- 
ternal corruption. The vigour displayed by Valentinian in de- 
fence of the West, from the year 364 to 375^ the imprudence of 
Valens, who laid open the interior of the empire to the Gothic 
nations, and the disasters which resulted from this, from 375 to 
379; lastly, the policy of Theodosius the Great, who, from 379 
to 395, succeeded in disarming enemies whom he could not sub- 
due, will successively form the subject of our reflections. 

Less than eight months after his elevation to the throne, on the 
17th of February, 364, Jovian died in a small town of Galatia. 
After the expiration of ten days, the army which he was leading 
home from Persia, at a solemn assembly held at Nice, in Bithy- 
nia, chose as his successor the son of a captain from a little vil- 
lage of Pannonia, the count Valentinian, whom his valour and 
bodily prowess had raised to one of the highest posts of the army. 
Valentinian, who had distinguished himself in Gaul, knew no 
language but Latin, no science but that of war. Having given 
proofs of independence of character in a subordinate condition, 
he thought to preserve a certain consistency of virtue by show- 
ing himself firm, inflexible, prompt, often cruel, in his judgments. 
He forgot, that to resist power demands courage; to crush weak- 



98 • FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. £OHAP. V. 

ness, needs only brutality. Spite of his savage rudeness, and 
the furious violence of his temper, the Roman empire found in 
him an able chief at the moment of its greatest need. Unhap- 
pily, the extent of the empire required, at least, two rulers. The 
army felt this, and demanded a second. " If you think of your 
country," said a brave officer to him, " choose a colleague from 
among her children: if you think only of yourself, you have a 
brother." Valentinian showed no irritation, but he chose his 
brother. Valens, with whom he shared his power, had the weak, 
timid, and cruel character which ordinarily distinguishes 
cowards. Valentinian, born in the West, speaking only the lan- 
guage, and attached to the manners and the climate of the West, 
reserved the government of it to himself. He ceded to his bro- 
ther a part of Illyricum on the Danube, and the v^^hole of the 
East. He established universal toleration by law, and took no 
part in the sectarian controversies which divided Christendom. 
Valens adopted the Arian faith, and persecuted the orthodox 
party. 

The finances of the empire demanded a reform, which neither 
of the emperors was in a condition to undertake. They wanted 
money, and they were ignorant where to seek the long exhausted 
sources of public wealth. Three direct taxes, equally ruinous, 
pressed upon the citizens^ the indictions, or territorial impost, 
calculated on the third of the income, and often doubled or tri- 
pled by superindictions, which the necessities of the provinces 
compelled the government to exact; the capitation or poll tax, 
which sometimes amounted to a sum equivalent to twelve pounds 
sterling per head, and the heavy gratuitous labours imposed for 
the service of the land, and the transport of the commodities be- 
longing to the revenue. These taxes had so utterly ruined the 
land-holders, that in all parts of the country they abandoned 
estates, which no longer produced enough to pay the charges 
upon them. Vast provinces in the interior were deserted; en- 
listments daily became more scanty and difficult; the magistrates 
of the curix or municipalities, who were responsible both for the 
contributions and the levies of their respective towns, sought by 
a thousand subterfuges to escape the perilous honour of the ma- 
gistrature. Some were seen taking refuge on the estates of some 
powerful senator, concealing themselves among his slaves, volun- 
tarily submitting to the brand of infamy, in the hope that it 
would disqualify them from charges so ruinous. In vain; they 



CHAP, v.] VALENTINIAN. 99 

were Torcibly dragged from their ignominious retreat, and rein- 
vested with the marks of these dreaded dignities. Then, when 
any disorder excited the anger of Valentinian, he called them to 
account for it with transports of fury. On one occasion he or- 
dered the lictors to bring him the heads of three magistrates of 
each town throughout a whole province. "Will your clemency 
be pleased to order," said the prefect Florentius, " what we are 
to do in the case of towns which do not contain three magis- 
trates?" The order was revoked. Though the emperor was a 
Christian, the people and the monks r^most always inscribed in 
th€ list of martyrs those who fell victims to his brutal rage. 
During the whole of the reigns of Constantine and his sons, the 
internal suffering of the empire had continued to increase. The 
mitigation of it effected by Julian was but temporary, and con- 
fined to a small number of provinces^ and his fatal expedition 
into Syria, which destroyed the finest army of the empire, in- 
creased the necessities of the government, and forced it to have 
recourse to still more disastrous expedients. 

During the twelve years that Valentinian reigned over the 
West (a. d. 364 — 376,) he redeemed his cruelties by several 
brilliant victories. He drove the Allemans out of Gaul and 
Rhsetia, which they had invaded and laid waste, and pursued 
them into their own country, where he again conquered them. 
He then excited a war between them and the Burgundians, 
whom he persuaded to come as far as the banks of the Rhine to 
avenge a quarrel they had had with the Allemans concerning 
certain salt-works. Valentinian had undertaken the defence of 
Gaul in person, and generally resided at Treves, then the capi- 
tal of that vast prefecture^ but at the time he was thus occupied, 
invasions not less formidable had devastated the other provinces 
of the West. The different tribes of Scots, forefathers of thoser 
Highlanders who were still so nearly in a savage state, when 
they invaded England in 1745, marched across the whole extent 
of Britain. Their path was marked by cruelties so atrocious^,, 
that it was believed at the time, and recorded by St. Jerome, 
that they lived on human flesh. London, even, was threatened 
by them; and the whole island, which, like all the other pro- 
vinces of the empire, had lost every spark of military virtue, was 
incapable of opposing any resistance to them. Theodosius, s 
Spanish officer, and father of the great man of the same name 
who was afterwards associated in the empire, was charged by 



100 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. V. 

Valentinian with the defence of Britain. He forced the Scots 
to fall back (a. d. 367 — 370,) but without having been able to 
bring them to an engagement. Scarcely had he delivered the 
Britons from these savage enemies, when Valentinian intrusted 
to him the conduct of a war of equal difficulty against the Moors 
whom intolerable oppression had driven to revolt, and who had 
found in Firmus, one of their native princes, tributary to Rome, 
an able and experienced leader. Theodosius pursued him with 
undaunted ardour and perseverance across the burning plains of 
Gastulia and the gorges of Mount Atlas. He gave him no rest; 
and after defeating liim in several battles, left him no other r^ 
source than a voluntary death. But Theodosius experienced 
the fate frequently reserved to eminent men under the tyrants of 
Rome. He wrote to the emperor that the revolt of the Moors 
was the work of the prefect Romanus, whose insupportable tyran- 
ny had reduced them to a state of desperation. He urged his 
recall, as the only means of saving the province. To complain, 
on whatever ground or whatever provocation, is to call in ques- 
tion the virtue or the wisdom of the despot. The emperor re- 
sented this offence. He caused his virtuous general to be be- 
headed at Carthage, and rewarded Romanus for his crimes. 

At this period Valens reigned over the Greeks, whose lan- 
guage he did not understand (a. d. 364 — 378.) His eastern fron- 
tier was menaced by the Persians, his northern by the Goths. It 
is true, that, observing with still greater timidity than real weak- 
ness, the shameful peace which Jovian had concluded with the 
former, he endeavoured to disarm Sapor, to whom the strong 
places on the frontier had been given up. But one of the dis- 
graceful conditions of a treaty imposed on the Romans, was the 
desertion of the king of Armenia, and his neighbour the king of 
Iberia. Both were attacked by Sapor. The former, deceived 
by an artful negotiation, was treacherously invited to a feast, 
where he was loaded with chains, and afterwards massacred. 
The latter was compelled to flee. Armenia and Iberia became 
subject to Persia; but as the people of both these countries were 
Christian, they remained faithful to the interests of Rome, though 
conquered by her enemy. A son of the king of Armenia, named 
Para, found his father's subjects ever ready to take up arms in 
his favour: the frequent revolts of the Armenians kept the Per- 
sian frontier in a state of insecurity and disquiet, and occupied 
the arms of Sapor in his old age. Para would, indeed, eventu- 



CHAP, v.] IRRUPTION OF THE HUNS, 101 

ally have triumphed, and have established the independence of 
Armenia, had not the emperor Yalens, by a policy wholly inex- 
plicable, caused him to be assassinated, in the year 374, in the 
midst of an entertainment which he gave his generals. 

The dominion of the Goths extended along the shores of the 
Danube and the Black Sea, and thirty years had elapsed since 
they had made any incursion into the Roman territory. But, 
during that period they had gone on increasing in greatness and 
in power. The aged Hermanric, the most illustrious of the Ama- 
lian race, reigned over the whole nation^ his power had extended 
from the Ostrogoths to the Visigoths, then to the Gepidae. He 
had pushed his conquests to the shores of the Baltic^ the Estho- 
nians and the Russians, or Roxolani, were among his subjects, as 
well as the Henetes of the plains of Poland, and the Heruli of 
the Palus Maeotides. At the beginning of the reign of Valens, 
an attempt of Procopius, a distant relation of Julian, to get him- 
self crowned at Constantinople, had drawn the Goths, his allies, 
to the south of the Danube. They were, however, repulsed in 
three campaigns, (a. d. 367 — 369,) and peace was re-established 
on that frontier. Spite of the formidable neighbourhood of the 
Goths and the Persians — spite of the cowardice and the incapa- 
city of Yalens — the East had remained at peace, protected by 
the mere name of Valentinian, whose military talents, prompti- 
tude, and severity, were known to all the barbarian tribes. But 
the career of this remarkable man, so dreaded by his enemies 
and by his subjects, had now reached its term. He was carry- 
ing war into Pannonia against the Quadi, and having granted an 
audience to the ambassadors of that nation, who came as sup- 
pliants to demand peace, gave way to so violent a fit of rage 
against them, that he burst a blood-vessel in his chest, and died 
in their presence, stifled by his own blood, which gushed in tor- 
rents from his mouth, (Nov. 17, 375.) His two sons, — Gratian, 
who was scarcely come to manhood, and Valentinian, still a 
child, — shared the West between them; while Valens, who had 
been thought incompetent to fill the second place, now remained 
in possession of the supreme power in the East. 

Never, however, was the empire in greater need of an able 
and vigorous head. The entire nation of the Huns, abandoning 
to the Sienpi its ancient pastures bordering on China, had tra- 
versed the whole north of Asia by a march of 1300 leagues. 
This immense horde, swelled by all the conquered nations whom 

14 



102 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRj:. [cHAP. V. 

it carried along in its passage, bore down on the plains of the 
Alans, and defeated them on the banks of the Tanais in a great 
battle. It received into its body a part of the vanquished tribe, 
accompanied by which it continued to advance towards the 
West; while other Alans, too haughty to renounce their inde- 
pendence, had retreated, some into Germany, whence we shall 
see them afterwards pass into Gaul; others into the Caucasian 
mountains, where they preserve their name to this day. 

The Goths who bordered on the Alans had fertilized by their 
labours the rich plains which lie to the north of the Danube and 
of the Black Sea. More civilized than any of the kindred Ger- 
manic tribes, they began to make rapid progress in the social 
sciences. They addicted themselves to agriculture; they culti- 
vated the arts; they improved their language; they collected the 
traditions, sung, or, perhaps, inscribed, in the Runic character, 
which preserved the memory of their migrations, and of the ex- 
ploits of their fathers; they kept up an advantageous intercourse 
with Greece, by means of which Christianity began to find its 
way among them; and, while they had gained more extensive 
knowledge, and more humane manners, they had lost nothing 
of their love of liberty, nor of their bravery. This comparatively 
fortunate state of things was suddenly interrupted by the appear- 
ance of the Huns, — the unlooked-for arrival of that savage na- 
tion, which, from the moment it crossed the Borysthenes, or the 
Dnieper, began to burn their villages and their crops; to massa- 
cre, without pity, men, women, and children; to devastate and 
destroy whatever came within the reach of a Scythian horseman. 
Their language was understood by none: the Goths even doubted 
whether its shrill and dissonant sounds were those of any human 
speech. Their name had never been heard in Europe. Northern 
superstition soon accounted for the sudden apparition of these 
armed myriads, by supposing them the offspring of infernal spi- 
rits, — ^the only fit consorts, they said, of women, the outcasts of 
Europe, who had been driven into deserts for the practice of arts 
of magic. 

The hideous aspect of the Huns gave colour to this devilish 
genealogy. " They put to flight," says Jornandes, the Gothic 
historian, *' by the terror inspired by their countenance, those 
whom their bravery would never have subdued. The livid co- 
lour of their skin had something frightful in it; it was not a face, 
but a formless mass of flesh, in which two black and sinister 



CHAP, v.] IRRUPTION OF THE HUNS. 103 

spots filled the place of eyes. Their cruelty wreaked itself upon 
their own children, whose cheeks they lacerated with iron before 
they had tasted their mothers' milk. For this reason, no down 
shaded their chin in youth, no beard gave dignity to their old 
age." Their bodies seemed no less disgusting than their faces. 
" Their aspect was not that of men," says Ammianus Marcelli- 
nus, "but of beasts standing on their hind legs, as it were in 
mockery of our species." 

The great Hermanric, whose kingdom extended from the Bal- 
tic to the Black Sea, would not have abandoned his sceptre to 
the Huns without a struggle, but, at this very time, he was mur- 
dered by a domestic enemy. The nations he had subjugated, 
prepared, on every side, for rebellion. The Ostrogoths, after a 
vain resistance, broke their alliance wdth the Visigoths^ while 
the latter, like an affrighted flock of sheep, trooping together 
from all parts of their vast territory to the right bank of tlie Da- 
nube, refused to combat those superhuman beings by whom they 
were pursued. They stretched out their supplicating hands 
to the Romans on the other bank, entreating that they might be 
permitted to seek a refuge from the butchery which threatened 
them, in those wilds of Moesia and Thrace which were almost 
valueless to the empire. They promised to bring them into a 
state of cultivation, to pay the taxes on the land, and to defend 
it with their arms. Valens, who for five years had fixed his re- 
sidence at Antioch, learned with surprise that an empire equal 
to his own in extent, superior in valour, and so long the object of 
his terror, had suddenly crumbled into dust, and that his most 
formidable enemies were now imploring to become his subjects. 

Humanity 'enjoined him to grant the petition of the Goths 5 
perhaps even policy dictated itj but baser motives determined 
the emperor, his counsellors, and the subalterns charged with the 
execution of his orders. Their sordid cupidity soon rendered 
odious the hospitality they offered to the Goths. The emperor 
had imposed two conditions on their reception; the one, that they 
should lay down their arms, the other, that they should give up 
their children as hostages. The officers charged with the duty 
of receiving the arms, suffered themselves to be seduced by 
bribes into a connivance at the non-execution of this order. Yet, 
when the transport, not of an army, but of a nation, was accom- 
plished, when 200,000 warriors, exclusive of women and chil- 
dren, had crossed the Danube, which, on the north of Moesia, is 



104 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. V. 

above a mile in width, the imperial officers tried to profit bj a 
famine, real or feigned, to strip those of gold whom they had left 
in possession of steel. All the necessaries of life were sold to 
them at the prices of an exorbitant monopoly. Never was ava- 
rice more blind; never did besotted government more eifectually 
prepare its own ruin. 

So long as the most vile and unwholesome food could be pur- 
chased at the price of money, of effects, of slaves, the Goths con- 
sented to strip themselves. The fear of endangering their hos- 
tages sustained their endurance to its utmost term; they even 
sold the children who were left them, and whom they could no 
longer feed, to buy sustenance for a few days. But when the 
distrust of the Romans, increasing with their injuries, led them 
to take measures for dispersing the Goths over the whole em- 
pire, and troops were assembled to crush them if they offered 
resistance, this very attempt to sever did but strengthen the ties 
that united them. Their chief, Fritigern, formerly designated by 
the title of Judge, began to take upon himself the character and 
functions of sovereign; and a violent quarrel having broken out 
at Marcianople, the capital of Lower Moesia, between the op- 
pressed and the oppressors, Lupicinus, the general of Valens, was 
defeated, his army put to flight, and the oppressed guests of the 
Romans found themselves masters of Moesia. 

The first success secured nearly all that were to follow. At 
the news of it, the Ostrogoths, who had maintained their inde- 
pendence against the Huns, passed the Danube arms in hand, 
and joined the Visigoths. Long before the invasion of the Huns, 
a great number of young Goths had entered the Roman service 
as an advantageous and honourable career: they now raised the 
standard of revolt, and went over to their countrymen. But the 
most dangerous of the auxiliaries of the barbarian army were the 
slaves, who fled in all directions from their inhuman masters, 
especially those who had been condemned to labour in the mines 
of Mount Rhodope: they craved vengeance at the hands of the 
stranger, and, in return, communicated their knowledge of the 
country, and the secret intelligence they had means of procuring. 
Notwithstanding these advantages, war was carried on for two 
years with various success. On the side of Yalens, Roman dis- 
cipline, and the possession of arsenals, magazines, and fortresses, 
counterbalanced the bravery of the Goths and the talents of Fri- 
tigern. But the pride of the emperor of the East could only be 



CHAP, v.] DEFEAT AND DEATH OF VALENS. 105 

satisfied by a victory gained under his auspices. He marched in 
person against the Goths with a most brilliant armyj he would 
not wait for Gratian, who was advancing from the West to his 
assistance. His defeat at Adrianople, on the 9th of August, 378, 
after"which he perished in the flames of a hovel in which he had 
sought refuge, left the empire without a defender. 

The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the terrible 
battle of Adrianople: more than 60,000 Roman soldiers perished 
in the fight or in the pursuit | and the time was long past when 
such a loss could have been easily repaired by fresh levies. Ne- 
vertheless, even after this frightful massacre, the walls of Adri- 
anople still opposed an unconquerable resistance to the barba- 
rians. Valour may supply the place of military science in the 
open field, but civilized nations recover all the advantages of the 
art of war in the attack or defence of fortified towns. Fritigern 
quitted Adrianople, declaring that he made no war upon stones. 
But, with the exception of a few great cities, the Romans had 
neglected the fortifications of the provincial towns: to defend 
them, it would have been necessary to arm the citizens, to train 
them to war, to place within their reach means of resistance 
which they might have turned to the purposes of revolt or of 
civil war. Empires are nodding to their fall, when their rulers 
are more in dread of subjects than of external foes: this dread is 
almost invariably the proof of injuries, by which they have earned 
the hatred and vengeance of the people. The Goths, leaving 
Adrianople in their rear, advanced, ravaging all around them, to 
the foot of the walls of Constantinople; and, after some unim- 
portant skirmishes, returned westward through Macedonia, 
Epirus, and Dalmatia. From the Danube to the Adriatic, their 
passage was marked by conflagration and blood. 

Whilst the European provinces of the Greek empire sunk 
under these calamities, the Asiatic provinces took a horrible ven- 
geance on the authors of them. We have said, that before the 
Goths were permitted to pass the Danube, they were compelled 
to give up their children as hostages; that those whom their pa- 
rents had been able to retain at that time, were afterwards sold 
for any sum that would purchase present sustenance for their 
famishing fathers; that the peril of these children had long been 
the only tie that had withheld the army of the barbarians, who 
even in selling them, had sought to save them from starvation. 
When their patience was, at length, utterly exhausted, — when 



XQ6 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. Y. 

the whole East resounded with the noise of their exploits,— these 
devoted children, with a daring far beyond their strength, un- 
armed as they were, and dispersed through all the towns of 
Asia, celebrated the triumph of their fathers^ they sang the songs 
of their country; they would speak no language but their native 
tongue; they exulted in the hope that they should soon share in 
these victories, — soon join the ranks of their countrymen. The 
inhabitants of the East, alarmed or incensed, saw, or pretended 
to see, in these imprudent demonstrations of youthful feeling, 
threatenings of a general revolt. Julius, commander-in-chief of 
the forces of the East, denounced them to the senate of Constan- 
tinople, as conspirators, and asked for orders; for the empire had 
remained, since the death of Valens, without a head. The se- 
nate imprudently recurred to the arbitrary constitutions of that 
republic, the tutelary provisions of which they completely disre- 
garded. It authorized Julius to take care that the republic re- 
ceived no detriment, {caveant consules ne quid, &c.) The young 
Goths were allured, by treacherous promises, into the capital of 
each province. Scarcely were they assembled in the Forum, 
when all the avenues were invested by guards, bowmen appeared 
on the roofs of all the houses, and, at a given signal, on the same 
day and hour throughout all the cities of Asia, the whole body of 
this noble and ardent youth was assailed, unarmed and defence- 
less, by a shower of darts, and then slaughtered without mercy. 

An atrocious act of cruelty is almost always a sign of coward- 
ice, not of courage. The orientals, who, in thus massacring 
thousands of young men, seemed resolved to destroy all possibi- 
lity of a reconciliation with their fathers, never dared to meet 
those fathers in the field. The same terror with which the Huns 
had so lately inspired the Goths, they in their turn struck into 
the Greeks. Nay, the hostile races, Scythian and Teutonic, had 
united for the destruction of the Roman empire. The Huns, who 
had penetrated into Dacia, had stopped there, and had pitched 
their tents. The captain who had led them thither was dead; ci- 
vil discords broke out in their hordes; and it was no longer in pur- 
suit of a general war, but in the quest of private adventures, that 
several divisions of Huns and Alans crossed the Danube, con- 
tracted an alliance with Fritigern, and seconded the steady and 
thoughtful valour of the Goths by a numerous and active ca- 
valry. 

Ko general in the East attempted to take advantage of the 



CHAP, v.] ALLIANCE OF THE HUNS AND OOTHS. 107 

anarchy in favour of his own ambition 5 no army offered the pur- 
ple to its chieO all dreaded the responsibility of command at so 
tremendous a crisis. All eyes were turned on the court of 
Treves, the only point whence help was hoped for. But Gratian, 
eldest son of Valentinian, and emperor of the West, was only 
nineteen. He had, indeed, even at that early age, acquired some 
renown in arms, especially through the counsels of an ambitious 
Frank named Merobaudes, one of the kings of that warlike peo- 
ple, who had not scorned the title of count of the domestics of 
the imperial court, and who, uniting his influence over his coun- 
trymen to the arts and intrigues of a courtier, had become the 
arbiter of the West. Gratian marched upon Illyricum with his 
army, when he learned the event of the battle of Adrianople, and 
the death of Valens, who had been so eager to secure the undi- 
vided honours of victory, that he would not wait for his arrival. 
Incapable of confronting such a tempest, he retreated to Sirmium. 
The news of an invasion of the Allemans into Gaul recalled him 
to the defence of his own territory. Danger started up on every 
hand at once. The empire stood in need of a new chief, and one 
of approved valour. Gratian had the singular generosity to 
choose from among his enemies, and from a sense of merit alone. 
Theodosius the Spaniard, his father's general, who had succes- 
sively vanquished the Scots, and afterwards the Moors, and who 
had been unjustly condemned to the scaffold at the beginning of 
Gratian's reign, had left a son thirty -three years of age, who bore 
his name. The younger Theodosius had distinguished himself 
in the command he held in Moesia, but was living in retirement 
and disgrace on his estates in Spain, when, with the confidence 
of a noble mind, Gratian chose him out, presented him to the 
army, on the 19th of January, 379, and declared him his col- 
league, and emperor of the East. 

The task imposed on the great Theodosius was infinitely diffi- 
cult. The abandonment of the Danube had opened the entrance 
of the empire not only to the Goths, but to all the tribes of Ger- 
many and Scythia. They overran the immense Illyrian penin- 
sula from one end to the other, unresisted, yet with unabated 
fury. The blood of the young Goths which had been shed in 
Asia was daily avenged with interest over all that remained of 
Moesian, Thrasian, Dalmatian, or Grecian race. It was more 
particularly during these four years of extermination that the 
Goths acquired the fatal celebrity attached to their name, which 



108 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. V. 

is still that of the destroyers of civilization. Theodosius began 
by strengthening the fortified cities, recruiting the garrisons, and 
exercising his soldiers in small engagements whenever he felt as- 
sured of success: he then waited to take advantage of circum- 
stances^ he sought to divide his enemies by intrigue, and, above 
all, strenuously disavowed the rapacity of the ministers of Ya- 
lens, or the cruelty of Julius^ he took every occasion of de- 
claring his attachment and esteem for the Gothic people, and at 
length, succeeded in persuading them that his friendship was 
sincere: happy in the peaceful state of his Asian frontier: happy 
that the aged Sapor II., or his effeminate successor Artaxerxes 
II., did not attempt an attack on the Roman empire, which would 
infallibly have succeeded. 

The very victories of the Goths, their pride, their intempe- 
rance, at length impaired their energy. Fritigern, who, in the 
most difficult moments, had led them on with so much ability, 
was dead: the jealousies of independent tribes were rekindled^ 
they refused to obey a common chief. The people of Scythia, 
the Huns, the Alans, who had shared in the plunder of the em- 
pire, now separated themselves from the Germans. They con- 
temned the Goths for their flighty and the Goths felt their anti- 
pathy to them to be strong as ever. Theodosius dexterously 
profited by these seeds of discord^ he drew successively into his 
service several leaders of the malecon tents; he soon convinced 
the barbarians that they would find more riches, more enjoyment, 
in the pay of the emperor, than they could conquer by the sword 
in provinces laid waste by the fury of merciless invaders. He 
was careful to afibrd so much countenance and support to those 
whom he had received under his banners, that the example be- 
came contagious. It was by a series of treaties with as many 
independent chieftains, that the nation was at length induced to 
lay down its arms: the last of these treaties was concluded on 
the 30th of October, 382. It restored peace to the Eastern em- 
pire, six years after the Goths crossed the Danube. 

This formidable nation was thus finally established within the 
boundary of the empire of the East. The vast regions they had 
ravaged were abandoned to them, if not in absolute sovereignty, 
at least on terms little at variance with their independence. The 
Goths settled in the bosom of the empire had no kings; their he- 
reditary chiefs were consulted under the name of judges, but 
their power was unchanged; they were still the military com- 



CHAP, v.] GRATIAN. 109 

manders, the presidents of popular assemblies, who administered 
justice and government. The Goths gave a vague sort of recog- 
nition to the sovereignty of the Roman emperor; but they sub- 
mitted neither to his laws, his magistrates, nor his taxes. They 
engaged to maintain 40,000 men for the service of Theodosius; 
but they were to remain a distinct army, to obey no leaders but 
such as they chose themselves, to be in no way confounded with 
the Roman soldiery, and to be distinguished by the title of fede- 
rated troops. The labours of agriculture, which they had been 
forced to abandon in Dacia, they now resumed in Mcesia and all 
the country lying on the right of the Danube. They portioned 
out waste lands. By their intermixture with the original inhabi- 
tants, they acquired new branches of knowledge, and followed 
up the progress they had already made in civilization. It was, 
probably, at this period, that their apostle, bishop Ulphilas, who 
had translated the Gospels into their tongue, invented the Moeso- 
Gothic character, which bears the name of their new abode. Oc- 
cupying the border country between the two empires and the two 
languages, they borrowed something from each, even in their al- 
phabet. At the same time that they were virtual masters of these 
provinces, their leaders offered themselves as candidates for all 
posts and employments at the court of Constantinople. From 
these they passed to the command of provinces; and the great 
Theodosius found himself compelled to decorate several Goths 
with the consulate; for the two emperors yearly agreed on the 
election of those ancient magistrates of the republic, now with- 
out functions, and serving little other purpose than to give their 
names to the year in the consular fasti. 

Thus, then, the empire still subsisted, but the barbarians pos- 
sessed both the force of arms and the authority of magistratures; 
already were they established as a compact national body within 
her frontiers. Theodosius conferred the consulate on Goths, and 
his colleague, Gratian, on Franks — among others on Merobaudes, 
chief of that warlike nation. The Frankish people had contract- 
ed a useful alliance with the empire. It supplied nearly the whole 
of the armies of the West, and exclusively guided the counsels 
of the court. About this epoch, however, the young Gratian, 
who had early obtained a brilliant reputation, having delivered 
Gaul from a formidable invasion by a decisive victory obtained 
over the Allemans, near Colmar, in the month of May, 378, be- 
gan to lose his popularity and the support of his Germanic allies. 

15 



110 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. V- 

Passionatelj addicted to the chase, he was struck with admira- 
tion at the superior skill of the Scythian archers. He took into 
his pay a considerable body of those Alans who had been obliged 
to leave the Huns on the banks of the Wolga. He established 
them on the Seine, made them the companions of his sports and 
exercises, formed them into a body guard, and even wore their 
dress. The Romans, and the Franks their confederates, equally 
regarded this preference as an insult. The legions of Britain re- 
volted, and placed the purple on the senator Maximus: those of 
Gaul deserted Gratian; and the young emperor, constrained to 
flee, was killed at Lyons on the 25th of August, 383. Theodo- 
sius, at that time occupied by a new aggression of the Ostro- 
goths, and the Gruthungians, whom he defeated, and Valentinian 
IT., who, while yet a child, wielded the sceptre of Italy and Af- 
rica, were both compelled to acknowledge Maximus as the col- 
league whom the v/ill of the soldiery had given them. (a. d. 383 
—387.) 

The history of the reign of Theodosius is very imperfectly 
known. Contemporary historians, either of the Eastern or West- 
ern empire, are wholly wanting to that period. ., Nevertheless, 
the title of Great has been handed down to bespeak the admira- 
tion of posterity. So far as we can judge, he seems to have me- 
rited this title, in the first place, by his military talents, always 
the surest claim to vulgar distinction; and secondly, by a consi- 
derable degree of prudence in the difficult government of a tot- 
tering state; by a generosity which broke forth with singular 
lustre on some occasions, and by domestic virtues and affections, 
purity of manners, and gentleness in his social relations, — qua- 
lities always rare in an exalted station, rarest of all on the throne 
of Constantinople. Yet it was neither his victories, nor his ta- 
lents, nor his virtues, that procured him the title of Great, or the 
zeal with which his name has been celebrated from age to age: 
it was, above all, the protection he afforded to the orthodox 
church, — a protection which extended its triumph over heretics 
and pagans, but which, in accordance with the spirit of his age, 
was stained with the most odious intolerance. 

When Theodosius ascended the throne of the East, Arianism, 
favoured by Valens, was the dominant faith, especially at Con- 
stantinople. The patriarch was Arian; the majority of the cler- 
gy, and the monks, and the great mass of the people, were at- 
tached to that form of Christianity. Theodosius, trained in the 



CHAP, v.] STATE OF THE CHURCH. Ill 

opposite creed, declined engaging in the subtle disputes of the 
Greeks, or examining for himself the different confessions of 
faith, or the evidence bj which they were supported. He 
deemed it more prudent to make choice of two living symbols,-— 
two prelates, whom, in his first religious edict, (a. d. 380,) he de- 
clared to be " the treasures of the true doctrine." Their names 
were Damasus, bishop of Rome, and Peter, bishop of Alexan- 
dria. Those whose faith was in conformity with that of these 
two luminaries of the church, were declared the sole orthodox, 
the sole Catholic, and were to remain sole possessors of all the 
churches, of all the ecclesiastical foundations, and of all proper- 
ty bequeathed to the clergy. All others were rejected as out- 
casts from the bosom of the churchy sentenced, in fifteen suc- 
cessive edicts, to punishments continually increasing in severity; 
deprived of the exercise of their civil rights, — among others, of 
that of bequest; they were driven from their houses, then into 
exile; and lastly, those guilty of certain heresies, as, for in- 
stance, the Quarto-decimans, who celebrated Easter on the same 
days as it is observed by the Jews, instead of celebrating it on 
a Sunday, as Christians do, were sentenced to death. At the 
same time a new magistrature, — that of inquisitors of the faith, — 
was instituted by Theodosius, to act at once as spies, and as 
judges of the secret opinions of his subjects. 

A sort of instinct of justice withheld these magistrates, for the 
present, from exacting from pagans as rigid an account of their 
thoughts as from heretics; they seemed to recognise the rights of 
long possession, the sacredness of time-hallowed opinions, and 
the potency of habit. Many of the most distinguished senators, 
orators, and philosophers of Rome, still publicly professed the 
antique faith. Theodosius did not venture to attach any punish- 
ment to the manifestation of their sentiments; he contented him- 
self with prohibiting the most essential act of the primitive reli- 
gion: he declared a sacrifice to the gods to be an act of high 
treason, and, in consequence, punishable with death. 

That church, which had so lately escaped from the persecu- 
tions of the pagans, now demanded, with a deplorable zeal, to be 
permitted to persecute in its turn. Three men who lived in the 
reign of Theodosius, rise distinguished from the ranks of the 
clergy, and surpass all their rivals in talent, force of character, 
and even in virtue;^— St. Gregory Nazianzen, for a time patri- 
arch of Constantinople; St. Ambrose, archbishop of Milan; and 



112 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. V. 

St. Martin, archbishop of Tours. All three powerfully contri- 
buted to fan the flame of persecution. St. Gregory, installed by 
soldiers in the cathedral of Constantinople, in defiance of the op- 
position of the whole flock intrusted to his care, lent his aid to 
the expulsion of the Arian clergy, having first stripped them of 
their functions, and substituted others in their placesj and when 
he had himself abdicated that exalted station, he continued to 
exhort his successor, Nectarius, not to relax in zeal against the 
heretics. At Milan, St. Ambrose would not extend the benefit 
of toleration so much as to his own emperor, Valentinian II., who 
had been educated by his mother, Justina, regent of Italy and of 
Africa, in Arian opinions. Ambrose refused the emperor, his 
mother, and the Gothic soldiers who formed his body guard, the 
use of a single churchy he assembled the people in the Basilica, 
(a. d. 386,) to defend it against the soldiers. To this popular re- 
sistance the celebrated Ambrosian chant owes its origin. The 
ceaseless chanting of the psalms, which intermitted not day or 
night, was the means of preserving the wakeful watch of the 
multitude who guarded the holy places. Lastly, St. Martin, who 
may be regarded as the great apostle of the Gauls, placed him- 
self at the head of a troop of armed people, and undertook the 
destruction of the idols and their sanctuaries throughout his 
neighbourhood, (a. d. 389.) The peasants sometimes attempted 
resistance, but they soon paid for their temerity with their lives. 
On this occasion a judicial investigation was set on footj but the 
saints declared, and the judges admitted, that the blood of the 
pagans had not been shed by the armed multitude led on by St. 
Martin to the attack of their temples, but that devils and angels 
had combated in these places, and the idolaters had merely 
shared the fate of the infernal spirits with whom they were 
leagued. 

The influence which religion exercised over Theodosius was 
more worthy of her, and more consolatory to those who watch 
the effects of her power over men, in the penance enjoined upon 
him by St. Ambrose in expiation of a heavy crime. Theodosius 
was subject to the most violent transports of ragej and that 
mildness for which he is extolled, vanished before the fits of an- 
ger which troubled his reason. Twice he was thus exasperated 
by the sedition of two of the largest cities of his states. Anti- 
och, capital of Syria and of the whole Levant, one of the most 
flourishing towns of the empire, revolted, on the 26th of Febru- 



CHAP, v.] THEODOSIUS. 113 

arj, 387, against an edict enforcing fresh taxes, and dragged the 
statues of the emperor in the mud. The city was soon reduced 
to submission, but four and twenty hours elapsed before it was 
known what punishment was decreed by Theodosius, who was 
then at Constantinople. His first orders were cruel: a great 
number of senators were to be beheaded, many wealthy citizens 
to be stripped of their property, all the distributions of bread 
were to be stopped, and the capital of the East to surrender all 
its privileges, and be reduced to the rank of a village. The ma- 
gistrates, however, were slow in the execution of these orders, 
they even interceded with Theodosius, who, after considerable 
delay, granted full pardon. The fate of Thessalonica was more 
cruel. That powerful city, capital of the whole Illyrian pro- 
vince, rose in insurrection, on an occasion so insignificant as cer- 
tain games of the Circus, to obtain the liberty of a skilful cha- 
rioteer who had been imprisoned, (a. d. 390.) Botheric, com- 
mandant of the city, was killed, together with several of his of- 
ficers, while endeavouring to suppress the sedition, and his body 
treated with the greatest indignity by the populace. Theodosius, 
who was then at Milan with Valentinian II., immediately gave 
orders that 7000, or, according to some, 15,000, Thessalonian 
heads should fall as a punishment for this rebellion. The inha- 
bitants were invited to the Circus, as if to the celebration of new 
games; while they were waiting for the signal for the departure 
of the chariots, a body of soldiers rushed in upon them, and 
slaughtered without distinction of innocence or guilt, of sex or 
age. This horrible butchery lasted three hours, when the tribute 
of heads exacted by the emperor was collected. 

When the news of this massacre reached St. Ambrose at Mi- 
lan, he manifested the liveliest grief. He wrote to Theodosius, 
on no account to show himself in a church, stained as he was 
with innocent blood. Theodosius, having disregarded this inter- 
dict, was stopped by St. Ambrose, at the head of his clergy, on 
the portico of the temple which he was about to enter. " David, 
the king who was well pleasing to God," said the emperor, " was 
much more guilty than I, for he joined adultery to murder." — 
" If you have imitated David in his guilt, imitate him in his re- 
pentance," replied the archbishop. His courageous remon- 
strances intimidated the monarch, who submitted to the chastise- 
ment of the church. He laid aside the imperial ornaments, and 
confessed his sins with the deepest sorrow and humiliation in the 



114 FALL OF THB ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. Y. 

presence of the people; nor was it till after eight months of pe- 
nitence that he was restored to the bosom of the church. 

The authority of Theodosius did not extend over the West. 
His residence at Milan was only the consequence of the succour 
he had afforded to his colleague, Valentinian II., who had been 
attacked by surprise and driven out of Italy, in 387, by Maxi- 
mus, emperor of Gaul. Maximus was defeated on the banks of 
the Save, in June, 388, and beheaded by order of Theodosius, 
who, at the same time, ceded to Yalentinian, who had become 
his brother-in-law, Gaul, and all the remaining countries of the 
West. The new reign of this young prince was not of long du- 
ration. He removed the seat of his court to Yienne on the 
Rhone, where he was assassinated on the 15th of May, 392, by 
order of Arbogastes, general of the Franks, whose authority had 
long predominated over that of his master. Two years elapsed 
before Theodosius was able to return to the West, to avenge his 
colleague. On the 6th of September, 394, at the foot of the Ju- 
lian Alps, he vanquished Eugenius the grammarian, whom Ar- 
bogastes had set up as a phantom emperor. After this victory he 
was acknowledged, without a rival or a colleague, throughout the 
Roman empire. But already his life was drawing to its close. 
He was attacked by a dropsy, which appears to have been the 
consequence of his intemperance, and survived his victory but 
four months. He died at Milan on the 17th of January, 395, 
aged fifty years, leaving the Roman world exposed to a host of 
calamities, which his talents and his courage had hardly sufficed 
to avert or to suspend. 



( 115 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 

Degradation of the Roman Soldiery. — Destruction of the Middle Classes,— 
Recklessness and Corruption of the Higher and the Lower. ^^Massacre of 
Thessalonica. — Arcadius and Honorius, Sons of Theodosius; their Imbe- 
cility. — Stilicho; his great Qualities. — State of the West under Arcadius. 
— Invasion of Greece, by Alaric, King of the Visigoths. — Italy invaded 
by Alaric; Defended by Stilicho. — Defeat of Alaric. — Cowardice of Ho- 
norius. — Great and final Invasion of the allied Barbarians, — Causes of the 
simultaneous Movement among the Germanic Nations. — They cross the 
Rhine, and ravage Gaul. — Invasion of Spain by the Suevi, Vandals, and 
Alans. — Conduct of Honorius to Stilicho. — Massacre of the Barbarian 
Hostages. — Second War with Alaric. — Rome taken and pillaged by Ala- 
ric. — His Death. — Peace with the Visigoths. — Cession of Aquitaine. — 
Marriage of Alaric's Successor, Ataulphus, or Adolf^ with Placidia, a 
Sister of the Emperor, — a. d. 395 — 423. 

The great Theodosius, who had frequently been seen to pass 
from the energetic activity of a warrior to the indolence and 
luxurious indulgence of a Sybarite, is accused, by Zosimus, of 
having corrupted the manners of his age, and precipitated the 
fall of the empire. Zosimus constantly writes under the influ- 
ence of a feeling of personal hostility^ and, certainly, when we 
recollect who and what were the predecessors of Theodosius,— 
what the Romans were under Tiberius and Nero, what they were 
under Gallienus,^ — it does appear that there was very little to 
corrupt^ and that Theodosius, who was faithful to his domestic 
obligations, a good father and a good husband, even during those 
intervals of luxurious ease with whicli he is reproached, can 
scarcely be regarded as a corrupter. Nevertheless, it is incon- 
testable, that, during his reign, a last step was made towards 
that utter degradation of mind, that prostration of spirit, which 
manifested itself during the shameful reign of his two sons, and 
which shook the colossus of the Roman empire to its base. Then 
it was, that soldiers, who did not blush to call themselves Ro- 
mans, laid dov/n their arms in the field; then it was, that that 
awful infantry, which had been used to fight foot to foot, and to 
rush, armed with its terrible short sword, on the ranks it had 
broken with its hurled spear, was transformed into a troop of 
timid bowmen, destitute of all defensive armour, and compelled 



116 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

to flee from every near attack of the enemy. Then it was, that 
in the cities, the citizens showed the most invincible repugnance 
to undertaking any public functions, which they avoided by the 
most disgraceful expedients. Then it was, that magistrates and 
senators began to pay their court to barbarian kings 5 to transport 
the arts of intrigue and of adroit flattery into the camps of Go- 
thic or Frankic warriors, whom they regarded as their inferiors, 
but feared as the arbiters of their fortune. Then it was, above 
all, that the doctrine of the divine right of kings, of the crimi- 
nality of all resistance on the part of the people, gained currency 
and credit in all ranks of society. The prelates, still full of gra- 
titude for the support afforded them by Theodosius, taught that 
the power of God and of his ministers could alone set bounds to 
the power of kings. If, however, there is a great lesson to be 
gathered from the degrading revolutions of the empire, it is, that 
absolute power is fatal to him who wields, and to him who is 
subject to it. We have seen, we are about again to see, sove- 
reigns, who, on the whole, do not deserve to be called wicked, 
afflict mankind with calamities surpassing those which have been 
most continually held up to our terror and aversion, as the oflf- 
spring of the stormy passions of the people. 

The utter corruption into which the Romans fell, during the 
fourth century, may also teach us this truth, — that adversity may 
be more fatal to the virtue of a nation than prosperity. Doubt- 
less the period of the irruption of the Allemans into Gaul, of the 
Caledonians into Britain, of the Moors into Africa, of the Sar- 
matians into Pannonia, and of the Goths into the whole province 
of lUyricum, was not that in which mankind was lulled to slum- 
ber in the lap of ease and pleasure. But one effect of the long 
duration of states, and of their extended power, is, to separate 
the inhabitants into two classes, between whom the distance is 
constantly widening, and gradually to destroy the intermediate 
class, together with which all the social virtues are gradually up- 
rooted and annihilated. From the time that this gulf is once 
opened between the two extremes of society, every successive re- 
volution does but contribute to widen it: the progress of wealth 
had been favourable to the rich, the progress of distress favours 
them still more. The middle class had been unable to stand the 
competition with them during prosperity; in adverse times it is 
crushed under those calamities which only the very wealthy can 
stand against. The corruption of Rome had begun from the 



CHAP. VI.] DESTRUCTION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 117 

time of the republic, from the time that the middle class ceased 
to impress its own peculiar character on the whole nation 5 this 
corruption increased in proportion as the intermediate ranks dis- 
appeared; it was carried to its highest pitch when the whole em- 
pire consisted of men of enormous wealth, and populace. 

It is, in fact, in the middle classes that the domestic virtues,— 
economy, forethought, and the spirit of association, — mainly re- 
side. It is in them that a certain degree of energy is incessantly 
called into operation, either as a means of rising, or of keeping 
the position already acquired. It is in them alone that the senti- 
ment of social equality, on which all justice is based, can be kept 
alive. We must see our equals, live with them, meet them daily 
and hourly, encounter their interests and their passions, before 
we can get the habit of seeking our own advantage in the com- 
mon weal alone. Grandeur isolates a man; vast opulence accus- 
toms each individual to look upon himself as a distinct power. 
He feels that he can exist independently of his country; that his 
elevation, or his fall, may be distinct: and, ere long, the servile 
dependants, by whom a man who spends as much as a petty state 
is sure to be surrounded, succeed in persuading him that his 
pleasures, his pains, nay, his slightest caprices, are more import- 
ant than the welfare of the thousands of families whose means 
of subsistence he engrosses. 

The morality of a nation is preserved by associating its senti- 
ments with all that is stable and permanent: it is destroyed by 
whatever tends to concentrate them on the present moment. 
So long as our recollections are dear to us, we shall take care that 
our hopes be worthy of them; but a people who sacrifice the me- 
mory of their ancestors, or the welfare of their children, to the 
pleasures of a day, are but sojourners in a country, — they are not 
citizens. In the Roman empire, at the time of the great Theo- 
dosius, the only two remaining classes of society were equally 
ashamed of the past, equally afraid of the future, equally driven 
to drown all reflection in the present. At the bottom of the so- 
cial scale, the populace, recently emerged from slavery, or ready 
to sink into it again, lived on the public distributions of provisions, 
or on a daily largess, beyond which they saw nothing. With- 
out hope for the future, these men had nothing to lose but their 
lives; and even these they were not permitted to ensure to them- 
selves the power of defending. What remained for them, but 
to render themselves brutishly reckless of calamities they had 

16 



118 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

no means of averting, and which, whenever they did come, would 
bring with them the final insensibility to all suffering? At the 
other extremity of the scale, the senators were nurtured in the 
same indifference. Their possessions were almost invariably situ- 
ated in remote provinces: he who learned that his harvests in 
Gaul had been burned, could still reckon on his granaries in 
Spain or Africaj he who could not protect his Thracian fields 
from the ravages of the Goth, calculated that his Syrian olive 
grounds, at least, were safe from the incursions of the Persian. 
However severe the losses they sustained, they scarcely ever 
amounted to ruin. They sometimes made him renounce mar- 
riage, (and indeed, all the illustrious families of Rome were ra- 
pidly becoming extinct,) but never did they cause him to change 
his luxurious habits. The princes of Poland reposed on a se- 
curity similar in nature, though on a far less extended scale, 
previous to the first partition of that unhappy country. The 
frightful ravages of the Zaporove Cosacks did not, indeed, ruin 
a descendant of the Jagellons; but, with him, the security of for- 
tune, united to the sentiment of patriotism, constituted a motive 
to dare every thing; with the Roman senator, the same security, 
joined with selfishness, furnished merely a reason for not fearing 
the worst. Improvidence, and an unbridled appetite for pleasure, 
equally characterizing the highest and the lowest class, are visi- 
ble in every page of the Roman history of this period. We find a 
singular instance of it in the massacre of Thessalonica. Thessa- 
lonica was the capital of that great Illyrian prefecture, which, for 
years, had been subject to the horrible ravages of the Goths. 
Peace, it is true, had prevailed for eight years; but the Gothic 
army and nation had remained masters of the country. Not four 
years, moreover, had elapsed since a fresh invasion, that of the 
Gruthungians, had struck terror into the whole province. It 
was under these circumstances that the people of this great city, 
which had never resisted either foreign conquest or domestic ty- 
ranny, revolted on account of a charioteer of the circus, and mas- 
sacred the lieutenant, the officers, and soldiers, of their emperor. 
Nay, so universal was the rage for these spectacles, that, after 
having irritated a monarch whose terrible violence was well 
known, the crowd, childish as ferocious, rushed again, with blind 
unsuspecting eagerness, to the circus, and expected games when 
vengeance awaited it. The same tastes pervaded all the capitals; 
the same fury for scenic games, the only one of all their public 



CHAP. VI.] ARCADIUS. 119 

passions which the Romans retained to the last. Distributions 
of bread among the mob often exempted them from all necessity 
for labour; and, as they knew no other luxury, as they desired 
no other enjoyment, life, surrounded by public misery, was con- 
sumed in base and brutal pleasures. 

The succession of the two sons of Theodosius, between whom 
the empire was divided, (Jan. 17, 395,) was not an event of a 
character to rouse the Roman world from its lethargy. Two 
children, who never became men, were heirs to the inheritance 
of a hero. Arcadius, whose portion was the East, was eigliteen; 
Honorius was only eleven. The former reigned thirteen years, 
(a. d. 395—408,) the latter twenty-eight, (a. d. 395—423.) It 
was never possible to discern the moment at which either arrived 
at the age of reason. But the imbecility of the elder was more 
immediately felt by the empire, because it was impossible not to 
pay some deference to his will and to his taste; and the court, 
modelled on the nullity of its master, was, from his very acces- 
sion, the scene of base intrigues, of feebleness, and of frauds 
whereas the infancy of the younger left the first place in the 
state for thirteen years in the occupation of him who was most 
worthy of it—the great Stilicho. (a. d. 395—408.) 

Theodosius had intrusted his two sons to his two ablest mi- 
nisters; he had hoped they would second each other, and that the 
unity of the empire would be preserved under the sway of two old 
colleagues, guiding two minor brothers. On the contrary, the 
first feeling displayed by these ministers was one of jealousyi 
the rancour of the weaker against the stronger mind sought an 
ally in popular prejudice. The East, whose language was 
Gr^ek, was incited to distrust the West, where Latin prevailed. 
Difference of manners was blended with difference of lansuaffe: 
two nations were set in opposition to each other; the unity of the 
Roman empire was broken; and two empires, that of the East 
and that of the West, were taught to think that they had no- 
thing in common. 

Rufinus, an able Gallic jurisconsult, whom Theodosius had 
raised to the rank of prefect of the East, was charged with the 
direction of the counsels of Arcadius and of the court of Con- 
stantinople. He had long been accused of avarice and cruelty; 
his vices had, however, been controlled by the eye of the master: 
as soon as he felt himself without a superior, they broke forth with- 
out restraint. He already thought his fortune secured, beyond 



120 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

all chance of a reverse, by a marriage between his only daughter 
and his sovereign. Arcadius appeared to acquiesce. The day was 
fixed for the ceremony: the pompous nuptial train was on its way 
to the palace of the prefect, to fetch the new empress. But, in 
passing before the house of the beautiful Eudoxia, Arcadius sud- 
denly stopped, declared that she was the bride he had chosen, 
and took her home to the palace, instead of the daughter of the 
prefect. It was, however, from no project originating in his 
own breast, from no passion which led him to disregard all other 
considerations, that the monarch of the East was induced thus 
to dupe his prime minister. He was but the tool of a court in- 
trigue, conducted by the eunuch Eutropius: in this instance, as 
in every succeeding one of his reign, he yielded to the insinua- 
tions of his servants, — the only portion of his subjects whom he 
ever knew. Shortly after, Rufinus was murdered at his master's 
feet, (Nov. 27, 395,) by order of the Goth Gainas, who had led 
the legions of Theodosius back from the West; and Arcadius, 
a stranger to all the duties and functions of empire, abandoned 
the reins of government to the vile favourites whom fraud or vio- 
lence alternately raised to the domination of the palace. 

Stilicho, a soldier of fortune, who is believed to have been the 
son of a Vandal, and who, under the reign of Theodosius, had al- 
ready evinced great talents for war, was at the head of the army 
of the West at the moment of the emperor's death, and remained 
sole guardian of Honorius. Stilicho is the hero of Claudian, the 
last of the great poets of Rome: his poem is almost the only 
document of the history of the guardian of Honorius. We can 
gather but an indistinct conception of him from this sort of tes- 
timony, unsupported by that of historians; we have no materials 
for forming an opinion of the character of a great man, but the 
writing of his panegyrist, or of the calumniators whom we know 
to have been paid by the emperor. Yet, even from representations 
so contradictory and so doubtful, we gather enough to see in Sti- 
licho a great and awful shade, worthy of that empire whose ruins 
he defended. His military genius secured him victories, though 
he no longer found Roman soldiers to command; he showed not 
only courage, but self-devotion, on behalf of a country which was 
already but a name; and, to crown all, he tried to interest in the 
national defence, the Roman senate, the men of high rank, the 
deputies of provinces: but he found in them only unmeaning de- 
clamation, and a pompous display of affected sentiment, in the 
place of patriotism. 



CHAP. VI.] STATE OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 121 

This Western empire, which Stilicho was called to defend in 
the moment of its extremest danger, was now little more than a 
vast desert, where no soldiers were to be found, where the regu- 
lar operation of the laws was suspended, and where only two 
authorities were recognised, — that of a territorial aristocracy in- 
vested with no legal power, but beyond the reach of lawj and 
that of a fanatical clergy, which swayed the multitude at its plea- 
sure. 

Italy and Gaul had still officers nominated by the emperor, 
and municipal magistrates elected by the cities; but both were 
alike impotent to carry the execution of the laws into the vast 
domains of a senator, who was the proprietor of entire provinces. 

Africa, the five provinces of which extended over thirty de- 
grees of longitude, or more than six hundred leagues along the 
Mediterranean coast, had fallen entirely into the hands of the 
children of the Moor Nabal, its wealthiest proprietor. The 
slaves of this family, its creatures, its clients, gave it a power 
against which the emperor himself could not contend. Firmus, 
whose revolt we have noticed in another place, was one of these 
children, after him came Gildo his brother, who from 386 to 398, 
formed to himself almost an independent sovereignty of this vast 
region. When, at length, Stilicho tried to reduce him to obe- 
dience, he destined an army of five thousand men to conquer a 
country, at least twice as large as France; nor was this all; he 
thought himself unable to attempt the enterprise without allying 
the animosity of a personal enemy to the imperial power. Mas- 
cezel had been robbed of his inheritance by his brother Gildo, 
who had also massacred his children: he cherished all a Moor's 
thirst for revenge against his brother. It was for him that the 
conquest of Africa was reserved. He made a descent upon it 
in 398, with the five thousand soldiers which had been given him 
to combat his brother; and after he had avenged himself, his un- 
expected death in crossing a bridge, over which his horse threw 
him, put an end to this patrimonial power, which had its source 
neither in the choice of the monarch nor in that of the people. 
On another occasion, we learn from the disasters of the reign of 
Honorius, that the brothers of Theodosius, as the richest proprie- 
tors of Lusitania, exercised a power in Spain as great as that 
Gildo had possessed in Africa. 

The reign of the sons of Theodosius was fatally marked by the 
settlement of the barbarians in the West. On the one hand, the 



122 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

Visigoths, setting out from what is called Servia, after ravaging 
Greece and then Italy, obtained a fixed abode at the foot of the 
Pyrennees, and there founded the monarchy, which was soon ex- 
tended over the whole of Spain. On the other, the Germans 
crossed the Rhine, and, spreading over Gaul and Spain, founded 
the monarchies of the Burgundians, the Suevi, the Lusitanians, 
and the Vandals of Baetica. The acts of this great drama must 
be exhibited in their order. We are called upon alternately to 
watch the march of history, and to reason upon its results: we 
implore the indulgence of our readers for the dry detail of facts 
with which we are compelled occasionally to burden their memo- 
ries. 

Sufficient time had already elapsed for the Visigoths, estab- 
lished in Moesia from the year 382, to recover from the evils of 
a war, in which they had lost their ancient country and con- 
quered a new one; for a nation in the vigour of youth rapidly re- 
cruits its strength during repose: while the empire in its decre- 
pitude was gradually becoming feebler by the mere lapse of time. 
The young men longed to rival their fathers in feats of arms; 
and, though solicited to enter the service of Arcadius, they de- 
spised military rewards which were not awarded by bravery, 
and could not endure to see the valour of the soldiers dishonoured 
by the cowardice of the leaders, or the fortune of adventurers 
dependent on the favour of courts. Alaric, a prince of the roy- 
al house of the Balthi, had, like the rest of his countrymen, made 
his first campaigns in the armies of the emperor, but when he 
had subsequently demanded promotion proportionate to the rank 
he held in his own nation, or to the ability he had displayed in 
the service of Rome, he received an insulting refusal. He soon 
taught the feeble son of Theodosius what an enemy he had thus 
imprudently made: the Visigoths, w^hose warlike passions he had 
aroused, raised him on a shield, saluted him as king, and called 
upon him to lead them on to those rich provinces, in which glory, 
wealth, and all the enjoyments it procures, would be the prize 
of their valour. As soon as Alaric announced that he was about 
to attack the empire, numerous hordes of Scythians marched 
across the frozen Danube and joined his standard: at the begin- 
ning of the year 396, a formidable host, whose progress no line 
of fortifications could arrest, advanced as far as Constantinople, 
laying waste the whole country in its line of march. 

Till then, Greece had escaped the invasion of barbarians, which 



CHAP. VI.] STILICHO AND ALARIC. 123 

rarely extended south of Constantinople; but Alaric held out to 
his soldiers the hope of dividing the yet untouched spoil of those 
illustrious regions. The defiles of Thermopylae, at the foot of 
Mount (Eta, were abandoned to him by the cowardice of the 
soldiers: during a long peace, all the fortifications of the cities 
of Achaia had fallen into decay; and the Visigoths now penetrated 
into the sanctuary of ancient civilization, (a. d. 396.) He grant- 
ed a capitulation to Athens; but he gave up the whole of the rest 
of this country, enriched with the glory and the beauty of former 
ages, and hallowed by the memory of the highest moral and in- 
tellectual culture which human nature ever attained, to the fury 
and rapacity of a savage soldiery : then it was that the temple of 
Ceres Eleusis was pillaged, and the myvSteries which had been 
celebrated there for eighteen centuries were interrupted. 

Then, too, began the memorable struggle between the skilful 
tactics of Stilicho and the headlong courage of Alaric. The for- 
mer, who had passed the Adriatic wi^i the legions of Italy, knew 
that his soldiers would never withstand the valour of the Goths: 
he consequently employed all his art in enticing them into a dis- 
trict of mountain gorges, in which he hemmed them up by a war 
of posts, always avoiding a battle, and thus, as it were, besieging 
them on a mountain, and there reducing them by hunger. Such 
was the address Stilicho displayed on several occasions, not only 
against Alaric, but other barbarian generals: but in the campaign 
of Greece his measures were defeated by those upon whose as- 
sistance he might reasonably have calculated. The base cour- 
tiers of Constantinople were more afraid of the influence a great 
man might acquire over their monarch by a signal service, than 
of the sword of the enemy which hung over their heads: they pre- 
vailed on Arcadius to command the general of the West to evacu- 
ate his empire; at the same time the emperor demanded peace of 
Alaric, and purchased it by appointing him master-general of the 
infantry in eastern lUyricum. 

The vices inherent in despotic government had gradually dried 
up all the resources of the empire; but in these last calamities it 
was more especially the immediate act of the sovereign which 
brought the most dreadful evils upon his people. When Arcadius,, 
instigated by the basest jealousy, granted to his most dangerous 
foe the command of the province he had just laid waste, he placed 
at his disposal the four great arsenals of the Illyrian prefecture, at 
Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica. For four years* 



124 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

the most skilful armorers of the empire were employed in the 
workshops of these four towns in forging arms for the Goths. 
For four years, Alaric was industriously training his soldiers ac- 
cording to Roman discipline, and to the use of arms so superior 
to those they had been accustomed to bear; and when, with the 
aid of the Greeks, he had rendered his subjects far more formida- 
ble than they could ever have become without these advantages, 
he called upon them to show the Romans what use they could 
make of the lessons they had received from other subjects of the 
empire. In the autumn of the year 402, he traversed the Julian 
Alps and entered Italy by the Frioul (forum Julii.) 

Even were the campaigns of these two great captains, Alaric 
and Stilicho, known to us sufficiently in detail to throw any 
light on the art of war, this would not be the place to follow them 
out; still less would it profit us to pause over the scenes of suf- 
fering and of misery in which that history is but too abundant. 
One thing alone deserves our attention: the new proofs which 
every step brings to view of the exhaustion, the death-like state, 
of an empire, which still numbered among its members Italy, 
Spain, France, England, Belgium, Africa, and the half of Ger- 
many, — an empire still governed by a great warrior and states- 
man, yet who, with all his genius, could not impart any vigour to 
the worn-out frame. Stilicho was, in fact, the real monarch of 
the West. Honorius, who had attained the age of eighteen, 
fixed his residence at Milan. His chief pleasure was to breed 
chickens in the palace, which knew his voice and fed from his 
hand. There was certainly no harm in this. It was a very in- 
nocent pleasure, and in no respect interfered with the adminis- 
tration of the empire. That nothing might interfere with that of 
his poultry-yard, his courtiers had been careful never to pro- 
nounce the name of Alaric in his ears, nor to permit any signs of 
the danger which menaced him, to appear before him, up to the 
very moment when the king of the Goths had reached the Adige. 
On the news of the enemy's approach, the emperor's first and 
only thought was to save his person. 

Stilicho, who feared the panic that the flight of the youthful 
sovereign would spread throughout Italy, with extreme difficulty 
withheld him, by a promise that he would return very shortly 
with an army powerful enough to defend him. The winter, during 
which the Goths had gone into quarters in the neighbourhood of 
Treviso, gave him a little time to recruit his army. But soldiers 



CHAP. VI.] STILICHO AND ALARIC. 125 

were not to be found in Italy; Stilicho was obliged to fetch them 
from Gaul, and even from Britain. He abandoned to the good 
faith of barbarians both the banks of the Rhine and the Caledonian 
wall. He incorporated into his army all the ancient enemies of 
Rome who were willing to enlist under his banner, and with 
40,000 or 50,000 men he recrossed the Alps, in the spring of 
403. Alaric, who had crossed the Adige, pursued Honorius, and 
was already besieging him in Asti, when Stilicho marched to the 
emperor's relief; compelled the haughty king of the Goths to raise 
the siege; and took advantage of his devotion to attack him at 
Pollentia, during the solemnity of Easter. He defeated him in a 
bloody engagement on the 29th of March, 403; stopped him as 
he attempted to cross the Apennines and to lay waste southern. 
Italy; forced him to retreat towards the Alps, and there beat him 
again in the neighbourhood of Verona; and, after all tliese victo- 
ries, thought himself happy when the terrible Alaric evacuated 
Italy, and retired into Pannonia. 

Honorius claimed the honours of a triumph in celebration of 
Stilicho's victories; and this solemnity of ancient Rome was, for 
the last time, stained with the bloody combats of gladiators. 
They were soon after abolished for ever, by an edict of Honorius. 
But that emperor, who had visited Rome with great pomp, (a. d, 
404;) who, in compliance with the counsels of Stilicho, had paid 
the senate and the people a deference they had long been unac- 
customed to receive from the masters of the world; had not suf- 
ficient reliance on the victories he was thus celebrating, to dare 
to fix his abode either in the ancient capital or in the metropolis 
of Lombardy. His first care was to seek in his states a city se- 
cure from the attacks of all his enemies. He made choice of 
Ravenna. This city, originally built on piles, intersected with 
canals, surrounded with marshes, presented the appearance we 
now see in Venice, and was no less inaccessible to attack from 
the land. Scarcely had he retired thither, when the West was 
alarmed by the march of Radogast, and by the great and final 
invasion of the barbarians, who, from that time, never more eva- 
cuated the empire. 

The general agitation of Germany has been attributed, by 
some writers, to new movements among the Scythian tribes, to 
the victories of Touloun, Khan of the Georgians, over the Huns. 
(a. d. 400.) It appears to us more probable, that the last inva- 

17 



126 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

sion of the Western empire is to be traced to causes residing in 
the Germans themselves. Already had several generations of 
their joung warriors successively left their native woods to seek 
glory and spoil within the boundaries of the empire: it was be- 
come a habit^ the minds of men were turned in that direction. 
Each successive expedition more clearly revealed the feebleness 
of the adversaries the Germans hoped to plunder j and when they 
saw- the Goths establish themselves south of the Danube, ravage 
Italy and Greece, and threaten the ancient capital of the world, 
they feared, perhaps, that Alaric would leave them nothing to 
take. Radogast, king of one of the nations which inhabited the 
southern shores of the Baltic, (the country now called Mecklen- 
burg,) declared that he had made a vow never to return his 
sword to its scabbard till he had levelled the walls of Rome, and 
divided its treasures among his soldiers. A host of warriors, 
nay, whole nations, were eager to second him^ so that it is diffi- 
cult to ascertain which was the tribe more immediately subject 
to his orders. The Burgundians, the Vandals, the Silingi, the 
Gepidse, the Suevi, and the Alans, took arms at the same time; 
more than 200,000 warriors flocked from all parts of Germany, 
and composed these great armies. In many provinces they were 
accompanied by their women and children, and the country they 
left behind them was a desert. 

Stilicho had been unable to send the legions he had summoned 
from the frontiers of the empire, to repulse Alaric, back to their 
original stations. He detained them under his command in Italy; 
but the whole military force of this gigantic monarchy scarcely 
exceeded 35,000 men, — so great had been the loss of soldiers in 
the late wars, and so great the difficulty of recruiting. The 
Lower Danube was abandoned to the Goths, the Upper Danube 
was exposed; the Upper Rhine was confided to the doubtful 
faith of the Allemans, and the Lower to that of the Franks. 
Radogast entered Pannonia, without difficulty, at the head of one 
of the great armies, (a. d. 406;) nor did he experience any resis- 
tance on his passage of the Alps, or of the Po, or even of the 
Apennines. The trembling Honorius shut himself up in Raven- 
na. Stilicho could hardly collect his soldiers at Pavia. At 
length he marched in pursuit of Radogast, came up with him 
near Florence, and, with the same ability with which he had 
twice attacked and defeated Alaric, drove him back from post to 
post, shut him up within his fortifications, without ever giving 



CHAP. VI.] . GENERAL IRRUPTION OF GOTHS. 127 

him an opportunitj of fighting a battle, and, at length, besieged 
him on the arid heights of Fiesole, where, after losing the greater 
part of his army by hunger, thirst, and disease, he was compelled 
to surrender at discretion. The vanquished foe, who trusted to 
the generosity of Honorius, had small ground for hope. The 
emperor put to death the captive before whom he had trembled. 
But the defeat of Radogast did not deliver the empire. Two 
other armies advanced upon Gaul. One, led on by Gondecar, 
king of the Burgundians, crossed the Upper Rhine, bore along 
the AUemans with him, and devastated the whole of eastern Gaul. 
The other, commanded by Godegisela, king of the Vandals, 
marched to the Lower Rhine; they encountered the Franks, who 
opposed a vigorous resistance: but, after an obstinate combat, 
during which the Alans came up to the succour of the Vandals, 
just as they were giving way before the enemy, tlie passage of 
the Rhine was effected on the 31st of December, 406, and the 
whole torrent of the barbarous tribes of Germany poured at once, 
with equal fury, over every part of Gaul. During three whole 
years massacre, pillage, fire, spread from province to province | 
while the wretched inhabitants were unable to offer any resist- 
ance; while the government made not an effort to defend tliem^ 
while the conquerors wearied not in their savage work. But as, 
in their first blind fury, they had destroyed treasures which they 
now vainly regretted, and had burned storehouses, which would 
have preserved them from the famine which now threatened 
them, the remaining spoil was insufficient to satisfy their cupidity. 
On the 13th of October, 409, a body of Suevi, Vandals, and Alans 
forced the passes of the Pyrennees, and Spain shared the fate of 
Gaul. At length, these hordes began to feel the need of repose. 
They fixed their quarters in the provinces they had conquered, 
in such a manner that each sovereign army could exercise a sys- 
tematic oppression over the provincials, who were no longer 
treated as enemies, but as slaves. About the year 410, Spain 
was portioned out among its Germanic conquerors; the Suevi 
and the Vandals shared the ancient Gallicia; the Alans had Lu- 
sitania; the Silingi, Bostica; whilst in Gaul, the Burgundians ad- 
vanced from the Moselle to the Rhone; the Allemans established 
themselves in Eastern Helvetia; and the Franks extended their 
quarters into Belgium. Nevertheless, the Germans made no 
immediate allotment or distribution of lands: they did not choose 
to become citizens at the expense of ceasing to be soldiers^ 



128 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

It may appear matter of astonishment that the great Stilicho 
did nothing for the defence of the empire: but his power had al- 
ready been shaken by court intrigues. From the time of his 
flight from Milan, Honorius had begun to think himself a great 
captain; and his confidence in his own military talents had been 
raised by the triumph he had decreed himself. He deemed him- 
self of an age to govern alone; and his first essay in the art of 
government was to thwart all the operations of his general. A 
vile favourite, whom he had taken from the situation of illumi- 
nator of the palace to place him near his person, had found 
means to rouse his pride. He continually repeated to him, that 
people were astonished that, at twenty-five, the emperor should 
not be his own master. From the time the courtiers remarked 
the decline of Stilicho's influence, they industriously accumu- 
lated obstacles in his way. This illustrious man, worthy of a 
better age, had tried to restore the dignity of the senate, and to 
rouse its members to fresh interest in the affairs of the republic. 
But he had found only rhetors, far more intent on catching popu- 
larity by making a display of fine sentiments, or by aping the 
expressions of their forefathers, than on understanding the state 
of affairs, their means of defence, or their resources. He had 
been forced to strive for a long time before he could bring them 
to sign a treaty with Alaric, which was become absolutely ne- 
cessary, but which they pronounced unworthy the ancient ma- 
jesty of Rome. Stilicho had been no less indefatigable in his ef- 
forts to raise the courage of the army, and to restore its disci- 
pline; but experience had taught him, that it was vain to look for 
intrepidity, for constancy under privation, for strength to sup- 
port fatigue, except among his barbarian auxiliaries. The favours 
he granted, the politic means by which he endeavoured to recruit 
the ranks of the defenders of Rome from among her enemies, 
caused discontent among the soldiers who called themselves Ro- 
mans. Honorius, and his favourite Olympius, strove to heighten 
the animosity, and to imbitter the accusations against Stilicho. 
The former, seized the moment of his general's absence to re- 
view his army at Pavia, and addressed them in a speech calcu- 
lated to exasperate them against their chief. His aim was, to 
incite his soldiers to demand the dismissal of a man whom he 
accused of having abused his confidence. But the sedition he 
excited, burst out with a violence he had not calculated on. The 
soldiers massacred two pra3tonian prefects, two masters -general 



CHAP. VI.] STILICHO. 129 

of cavalry and infantry, and almost all their generals and offi- 
cers, because they had been appointed by Stilicho. Honorius, 
with trembling haste, published a decree, in which he condemned 
the memory of the dead, and applauded the conduct and fidelity 
of the insurgent troops. The moment this news was carried to 
the camp of the confederate army at Bologna, where Stilicho 
then was, the leaders of the barbarian soldiers, with one accord, 
offered to defend, to avenge him, and even to seat him upon the 
throne. He would not expose the empire to the horrors of civil 
war for his own security or advantage. He refused their offers: 
he even warned the Roman cities to be on their guard against 
the confederate troops ^ and, proceeding straight to Ravenna, 
seated himself at the foot of the altar of the great church, thus 
invoking the protection of superstition in default of that he had 
a right to claim from gratitude. But he could not avert the fate 
by which greatness in a subject is generally rewarded by base- 
ness on a throne. The count Heradius, who was sent by the 
emperor to arrest the noble soldier, would have been withheld 
by scruples from violating the sanctuary: he had none in de- 
ceiving the bishop of Ravenna by a false oath. Having thus in- 
duced him to deliver up Stilicho into his hands, he struck off 
his head with his own sword before the porch of the church, 
(August 23d, 408.) 

Stilicho had too much greatness of soul not to appreciate that 
quality in others: he honoured his adversary Alaric^ he knew 
what he had to fear from him, and he had employed his utmost 
policy to keep at peace with him during the invasion of Rado- 
gast. The mean and cowardly Honorius, on the contrary, who 
was beyond the reach of danger in his retreat at Ravenna, 
thought that a display of arrogance was a proof of strength, and 
that to insult an enemy, was to intimidate him. He displaced 
the bravest and most renowned barbarian captains from the com- 
mands they held in his armies; removed all who professed reli- 
gious opinions different from his own, from every public office; 
thus depriving himself and the state of the services of a great 
many distinguished pagan or Arian functionaries: and, to com- 
plete the purification of his army, ordered a general massacre of 
all the women and children of the barbarians, whom the soldiers in 
his service had delivered up as hostages. In one day and hour 
these innocent victims were given up to slaughter, and their pro- 
perty to pillage. 



130 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

These hostages had been left in all the Italian cities by the 
barbarian confederates, as a guarantee for their fidelity to Rome; 
when they learned that the whole had perished, in the midst of 
peace, in contempt of all oaths, one furious and terrific cry of 
vengeance arose, and thirty thousand soldiers, who had been the 
faithful servants of the empire, at once passed over to the camp 
of Alaric, and urged him to lead them on to Rome. 

Alaric, in language the moderation of which Honorius and his 
ministers ascribed to fear, demanded reparation for the insults 
oflfered him, and strict observance of the treaties concluded with 
him. The only answer he obtained was couched in terms of 
fresh insult, and contained an order to evacuate all the provinces 
of the empire. It might have been supposed that great armies 
were ready to support such insolent pretensions; yet, when Ala- 
ric crossed the Alps, in the month of October, 408, he traversed 
Friuli, the towns of Aquilea, Concordia, Altino, and Cremona, 
and came up before the walls of Ravenna without meeting a sin- 
gle foe. He had no hope of reducing that city by siege; but no 
one attempted to arrest his march across Romagna when he con- 
tinued his route; and he at length arrived before Rome 619 years 
after that city had been threatened by Hannibal. During that 
long interval her citizens had never looked down from her walls 
upon the banner of an enemy waving in their plains. 

But this long term of peace and prosperity had added nothing 
to their means of defence; in vain did they count 1780 senatorial 
houses, or palaces enriched with every luxury; in vain did they 
boast that the revenue of more than one of their senators exceed- 
ed 4000 pounds weight of gold, — 160,000/. sterling, (for it is 
well to compare this enormous wealth with that of the country 
which approaches the most nearly to it;) all their opulence, all 
their splendour, were insuflicient to procure them the defence of 
brave soldiers. The people had long been regarded with distrust; 
— the people, whom the general organization of society rendered 
miserable, and who cared for nothing but public distributions of 
bread, meat, and oil. The mob, who had for generations been 
withheld from the use of arms, and whom the higher classes 
would have trembled to see brought into military training, was 
devoid of strength and of courage when the enemy appeared 
without the walls. Alaric did not attempt to take Rome by as- 
sault: he blockaded the gates, stopped the navigation of the Ti- 
ber, and soon famine took possession of a city wliich was eighteen 



CHAP. VI.] CONDUCT OF HONORIUS. 131 

miles in circumference, and contained above a million of inhabi- 
tants. The Romans were reduced to feed on the vilest and most 
revolting: aliments: we are assured, that these men, who dared 
not fight, dared to cover their tables with human flesh, nay, even 
the flesh of their children. That no supernatural aid might be 
neglected, not only did they first invoke all the celestial powers, 
by means of the ceremonies of the church, but, on the 1st of 
March, 409, they had recourse to the gods of paganism, and to 
the infernal spirits with whom those gods had been confounded^ 
these they strove to propitiate by forbidden sacrifices. Honorius 
ceased not to promise succours, which it was not in his power to 
grant, and which, indeed, he did not so much as attempt to col- 
lect; this deluded expectation cost the besieged thousands of 
lives. At length, the Romans had recourse to the clemency of 
Alaric; and, by means of a ransom of five thousand pounds of 
gold and a great quantity of precious effects, the army was in- 
duced to retire into Tuscany. 

But it seemed as if Honorius had determined on the destruc- 
tion of Rome, which the barbarians consented to spare; new fa- 
vourites supplanted each other in rapid succession in the favour 
of the monarch, and in the possession of supreme power. A 
certain road was open to them; — to flatter his pride, to boast his 
resources, to repel every idea of concession to the enemies of the 
state; while Alaric, in the heart of Italy, re-enforced by forty 
thousand slaves of Germanic extraction, who had fled from 
Rome, still more powerfully re-enforced by the valiant Ataulphus, 
his brother-in-law, who had led a fresh army from the shores of 
the Danube, asked only a province in which to establish his na- 
tion in peace. Honorious successively broke off" every negotia- 
tion begun by his own orders; obstinately refused what he had 
already promised, and, at length, exacted a solemn oath from all 
the ofi&cers of the army, who swore on the head of the emperor, 
that never, and under no circumstances, would they lend an ear- 
to any treaty with the public enemy. 

Notwithstanding the thousand provocations he received from 
the imbecile and imprudent Honorius, Alaric had the generosity 
to spare the capital of the world, for which he felt an involuntary 
reverence. But, taking possession of the mouth of the Tiber, 
and the city of Porto, which contained the chief granaries, he 
sent word to the senate, that, if they wished to save Rome from 
famine, they must choose a new emperor. The senate made 



132 ' FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

choice of Attalus, a praetorian prefect, who made peace with 
Alaric, and named him general of all the armies of the empire. 
But the new emperor was neither less incapable, nor less pre- 
sumptuous than Honorius: he would not follow the advice of 
Alaric 5 he neglected to cause himself to be recognised in Afri- 
ca: in a word, he committed so many faults, that, after allowing 
him to wield the sovereign power for a year, Alaric was com- 
pelled to depose him. He again offered peace to Honorius; was 
again repulsed with insult, and then, for the third time, led back 
his army to the gates of Rome; and, on the 24th of April, 410, 
the year 1163 from the foundation of the august city, the Sala- 
rian gate was opened to him in the night, and the capital of the 
world, the queen of nations, was abandoned to the fury of the 
Goths. 

Yet this fury was not without some tinge of pity; Alaric 
granted a peculiar protection to the churches, which were pre- 
served from all insult, together with their sacred treasures, and 
all those who had sought refuge within their walls. 

While he abandoned the property of the Romans to pillage, he 
took their lives under his protection; and it is affirmed, that only 
a single senator perished by the sword of the barbarians. The 
number of plebeians who were sacrificed appears not to have been 
thought a matter of sufficient importance even to be mentioned. 
At the entrance of the Goths, a small part of the city was given 
up to the flames; but Alaric soon took precautions for the pre- 
servation of the rest of the edifices. Above all, he had the ge- 
nerosity to withdraw his army from Rome on the sixth day, and 
to march it into Campania, loaded, however, with an immense 
booty. Eleven centuries later, the army of the Constable de 
Bourbon showed less moderation. 

A religious veneration for the city which had vanquished the 
world, for the capital of civilization, seemed to have protected 
Rome against her most puissant enemy. Yet, it might soon have 
been imagined that even this generous foe was punished for 
daring first to lay a sacrilegious hand on her majesty; for, at the 
end of a few months, Alaric fell ill and died, in the full career 
of victory, and full of the projected conquest of Sicily and 
Africa. Alaric was buried in the bed of the Bisentium, a little 
river which flows beneath the walls of Cozenza; and the cap- 
tives who had been employed to dig his grave, to turn the course 
of the river, and afterwards lead it into its former bed, were all 



CHAP. VI.] DEATH OF ALARIC. 1$5 

massacred, that none might be able to reveal the spot where re* 
posed the body of the conqueror of Rome. 

In fact, the Goths, always wandering, could not protect the 
graves of their illustrious men. They thought with pain that, at 
their death, they would leave their bones entombed in hostile 
ground, and that the dastardly inhabitants, who never dared to 
meet them face to face, would revenge themselves on their re- 
mains, for the terror they had inspired. Satisfied with uninter- 
rupted conquest, and gorged with spoil, they once more demand- 
ed a country and a home; and Ataulphus, brother-in-law of 
Alaric, whom they raised on their shields and proclaimed king^ 
seconded their wishes, and renewed those negotiations with the 
court of Ravenna, which Alarie had been unable to bring to a 
conclusion. Tl"te terror caused by the sack of Rome had at 
length shaken even the stubborn pride of the emperor: his mi- 
nisters, liberated from their oath by the death of Alaric, eagerly 
represented to him that, in adopting the Gothic king's army as 
soldiers of the republic, he would augment his power, and would 
avenge himself of his enemies; that Ataulphus appeared dis- 
posed to rid Gaul of the barbarians, in consideration of obtaining 
a small part of the deserts of that province; that he offered to 
render a still more important service in warring against the 
usurpers who had dared to assume the purple; — foes infinitely 
more dangerous and more criminal than the public enemy, since 
they assailed the majesty of the emperor himself, whilst the 
others directed their hostilities against the comnwn and ignoble 
herd of subjects. A treaty wa& actually concluded, by which 
Ataulphus and the Visigothic nation engaged to combat the ene- 
mies of Honorius in Gaul and Spain; in consideration of which, 
the latter should cede to them the provinces of Aquitania and 
Narbonnese Gaul, in which they were to establish themselves, 
and to found a new Gothland, an independent people. In 412, 
Ataulphus marched back his army and his nation from the extre- 
mity of Campania into southern Gaul : the cities of Narbonne, 
Toulouse, and Bordeaux were open to them; and the Visigoths- 
at length hailed with joy the land in which they were at length, 
to find a resting-place and a home* 

Ataulphus, the first of the Yisigoths who had led his country- 
men into southern Gaul and Spain, appears to have had another 
motive for his reconciliation with the Romans, which belongs ra- 
ther to romance than to history. Among the captives carried oflf 

18 



134 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VI. 

from Rome, and compelled to follow the camp of the Visigoths, 
was Placidia, the sister of Honoriiis, who was very superior to 
either of her brothers in talents and in ambition. Ataulphus fell 
in love with her, and regarded an alliance with the daughter of 
the great Theodosius, and the sister of the two reigning empe- 
rors, as a new glory to himself. Among the Romans, the reign- 
ing family was not distinct from all others, as among the Ger- 
manic tribes^ the title of princess was unknown^ and Placidia 
had no other alternative than celibacy, or a union with one of her 
brother's subjects; yet such an alliance still appeared, to a Ro- 
man, far superior to one with a barbaric king. An invincible 
prejudice had hitherto severed the Romans from all other nations; 
and the first proposals for this marriage, addressed to the court 
of Honorius, were regarded as an insult. Placidia thought 
otherwise; she beheld Ataulphus, whose noble countenance 
seemed formed to efface the ancient prejudices of Rome. Be- 
fore the Goths quitted Italy, she married their leader and sove- 
reign at Forli; but the royal nuptials were celebrated anew with 
greater splendour at Narbonne, the capital of the new kingdom 
won by Gothic valour. " A hall was decorated after the Roman 
fashion," says Olympiodorus, a contemporary historian, " in the 
house of Ingenuus, one of the first citizens of the town: the 
place of honour was reserved for Placidia, while Ataulphus, clad 
in a Roman toga, seated himself at her side: fifty beautiful 
youths, attired in silken garments, whom he destined as a gift to 
his bride, then advanced, each presenting to her two cups, the 
one filled with gold, the other with gems,~a part of the spoil of 
Rome. At the same time Attains, that Attains whom Alaric 
had created emperor, appeared and sang the epithalamium." 

Thus did the calamities of the world furnish trophies to deco- 
rate the festivals of its masters. 



( 135 ) 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Barbarians established in the Empire. — State of Britain, and of Armo- 
rica. — Settlements of the Franks on the Rhine, the Burgundians on the 
Rhone, the Visigoths on the Loire. — Mixed Governments; Roman Pre- 
fects, Barbarian Kings and Assemblies. — State of Spain, of Italy, of Pan- 
nonia, and of Africa. — Universal Suffering. — Deaths of Arcadius and Ho- 
noriiis. — Dynasties of the barbaric Kings. — Frequency of atrocious 
Crimes. — Fabulous Account of Frankic Kings. — Visigoths, Suevi, Alans, 
Vandals. — Conquest of Africa by the Vandals under Genseric — Their 
Ferocity. — Fall of Carthage. — Kingdom of the Huns. — Attila. — His Trea- 
ty with Theodosiusll. — His Northern Conquests. — His Attack on the Em- 
pire. — Submission of the Greeks. — Embassy to his Camp. — Passage of 
the Rhine. — Defeat of Attila by iEtius at Chalons. — Invasion of Italy by 
Attila. — Foundation of Venice. — Death of Attila. — Dissolution of his Em- 
pire.— a. D. 412—453. 

From the time the barbarians had established themselves in 
all parts of the empire, this vast portion of the world, heretofore 
subject to the levelling influence of a despotism which had 
broken down all distinctions and all differences, now presented 
the wildest assemblage of dissimilar manners, opinions, lan- 
guages, religions, and governments. Spite of the habits of ser- 
vility which were hereditary among the subjects of the empire, 
their subordination was broken up; the law no longer reached 
them; oppression or protection no longer emanated from Rome 
or from Constantinople. The supreme power, in its impotence, 
had called upon them to govern themselves; and ancient national 
manners, ancient local opinions, began to reappear under the 
borrowed garb of Rome. But this strange motley of provincial- 
ism was nothing compared to that introduced by the barbarians 
who had pitched their camps in the midst of Roman cities, and 
whose kings were constantly intermingled with senators and 
with bishops. 

At one extremity of the Roman dominions, the island of Bri- 
tain escaped from the power which had civilized but enervated 
it. Stilicho had withdrawn the legions from it for the defence of 
Italy. The usurper Constantine, who had revolted against Ho- 
norius between the years 407 and 411, and who, after reducing 
Britain, had attempted the conquest of Gaul, led thither all the 



136 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. YII. 

soldiers who still remained in the island. After he was defeat- 
ed, and his head sent to Ravenna, Honorius did not choose to 
deprive himself of any portion of his troops for the defence of 
so remote a province: he wrote to the cities of Britain as if they 
already formed an independent confederation, and exhorted them 
to provide for their own defence. Fourteen of these cities were 
considerable^ several had already made great progress in arts and 
commerce, and, above all, in that Roman luxury which so rapid- 
ly tamed and deadened the fiercest courage. London was a large 
and flourishing town; but, among its numerous inhabitants, not 
one was found who dared to take up arms. Its municipal go- 
vernment, established on the Roman system, like those of York, 
Canterbury, Cambridge, &c., would have given them the advan- 
tages of a republican administration, if they had preserved a lit- 
tle more public spirit; but the poison of a foreign domination had 
sapped the vital energies of the country. It was in the country, 
and not in the towns, that we must look for the first symptoms 
of the revival of a national feeling. The Celtic language, which 
was almost extinct in Gaul, had been preserved in Britain, — a 
proof that the rural population was not utterly crushed. It seems 
that the rich proprietors, the British senators, were aware that 
their security and their power depended wholly on their union 
with the people; it is probable that they lived in the midst of 
their peasantry, and learned their language: at all events, we 
find them reappearing under British, and not under Roman 
names, in that struggle which they were soon called upon to sus- 
tain with the Picts and Scots, and, at a later period, with the 
Saxons. 

The condition of Armorica, or Little Britain, was nearly si- 
milar, both in the nature of its population, which had likewise 
preserved the Celtic language and manners, and in its remote- 
ness from the centre of the empire. The Armorican cities also 
formed a league which raised a sort of militia for their own de- 
fence, and inspired some respect up to the time of the Frankic 
invasion. The vigour of the fierce Osismians, who inhabited the 
farther coast of Britany; their coitrage, their agility, their at- 
tachment to their hereditary chieftains, recalled to the rest of the 
Gauls what their fathers had been. They resembled those moun- 
taineers of Scotland whom a great poet has so admirably de- 
picted, such as they remained scarcely more than half a cen- 
tyr^ ago. 



CHAP. VII.] VISIGOTHS. BURGUNDIANS. 137" 

In spite of the prohibitory laws of Augustus and Claudius, 
many of them adhered to the primitive worship of the gods of the 
Druidsj those atrocious divinities, whose altars were buried in 
the depths of forests, and stained with human blood. Others had 
embraced Christianity, and, during four centuries, they furnished 
a great number of saints to the church of Rome. So long as the 
British heroes, such as Hoel, Allan, Judicael, (to whom several 
churches were dedicated,) retained the vigour of youth or man- 
hood, they knew no other passion than that for war^ they poured 
down by night on the nearest Roman or Gaulish villages, which 
they pillaged and burned; but, when their ferocity was tamed by 
age and began to give place to the terrors of a future judgment, 
they shut themselves up in convents and lived a life of the se- 
verest penance. 

The Franks had begun to cross over from the right to the left 
bank of the Rhine, and had made some settlements in Belgium; 
but, faithful to their alliance with the empire, which had made 
the greatest exertions and sacrifices to preserve their friendship, 
they every where appeared in the character of soldiers of the 
emperors; their numerous petty sovereigns solicited imperial dig- 
nities; their highest ambition was to rise at the court of the sons 
of Theodosius; and they had learned how to combine the arts of 
intrigue with valour. If they oppressed and despoiled the pea- 
santry upon whom they were quartered; if, in a sudden burst of 
fury, or in a fit of rapacity, they fell upon large cities; if even 
Treves, the capital of all the Gauls, and Cologne, the chief town 
of Lower Germany, were on several occasions pillaged by them, 
the emperors and their prefects were too sensible of the impor- 
tance of their Frankic allies to cherish long resentment, and 
peace was soon concluded at the expense of the defenceless suf- 
ferers. 

The Burgundians in eastern Gaul, the Visigoths in southern, 
also called themselves the soldiers of the emperors. Their con- 
dition was, however, very different from that of the Franks; the 
entire nation had transmigrated into a new abode, without ac- 
knowledging any fixed limits: it had extended its dominion 
wherever it could make its power feared. The king of the Bur- 
gundians sometimes held his court at Vienne, on the Rhone, 
sometimes at Lyons or Geneva; the kings of the Visigoths at 
Narbonne, at Bordeaux, or oftener at Toulouse: the city was 
subject to them, yet Roman magistrates still continued to regu- 



138 ^ FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [gHAP. VII- 

late the police, and to administer justice according to Roman 
laws, and in favour of Roman subjects. The Visigoths and the 
Burgundians had appropriated lands either waste, or taken from 
the original proprietors without many formalities^ these were 
abandoned to their flocks and herds, or occasionally cultivated by 
their slaves; but negligently and without any outlay which must 
await a tardy return. They chose to be ready to quit the fields 
they had sown, the next year, if needful. The two nations had 
not yet taken root in the soil. The Visigoths sometimes passed 
over from Aquitaine into Spain; the Burgundians from the banks 
of the Rhine to those of the Moselle. The habits of a wander- 
ing life, confirmed by half a century, could not be broken through 
at once: all the Visigoths were Christians, but of the Arian sect, 
as were also the Burgundians. The bishops hated heresy far 
more than paganism, and they sedulously nourished in their flocks 
an aversion which the violence of these arrogant guests was suf- 
ficient to excite, and which sometimes burst forth in formidable 
commotions. Nevertheless, the priests understood too well 
where the power of the sword lay, to dispute the authority of 
these barbaric kings as they had lately disputed that of the em- 
perors. At Toulouse and at Vienne, they paid their court con- 
jointly with the senators; the prelates, in all the pomp of their 
ecclesiastical ornaments, and the senators, still wearing the once 
awe-inspiring toga, mingled with the rude warriors whom they 
hated and despised, but whose favour they sought and gained by 
dexterous flattery. 

The same form of civil administration still subsisted. A prae- 
torian prefect still resided at Treves; a vicar of the seventeen 
Gallic provinces at Aries: each of these provinces had its Roman 
duke; each of the hundred and fifteen cities of Gaul had its 
count; each city its curia, or municipality- But, collaterally 
with this Roman organization, the barbarians, assembled in their 
mallum, of which their kings were presidents, decided on peace 
and war, made laws, or administered justice. Each division of 
the army had its Graf Jarl, or count; each subdivision its cente- 
nary, or hundred-man; and all these fractions of the free popu- 
lation had the same right of deciding by suffrage in their own 
mallums, or peculiar courts, all their common affairs. In cases 
of opposition between the barbarian and the Roman jurisdiction, 
the overbearing arrogance of the one, and the abject baseness of 
the other, soon decided the question of supremacy. 



CHAP. VII.] VISIGOTHS. BURGUNDIANS. 139 

In some provinces the two powers were not concurrent: there 
were no barbarians between the Loire and the Meuse, nor be- 
tween the Alps and the Rhone; but the feebleness of the Roman 
government was only the more conspicuous. A few great pro- 
prietors cultivated a part of the province with the aid of slaves; 
the rest was desert, or only inhabited by Bagaudse, runaway 
slaves, who lived by robbery. Some towns still maintained a 
show of opulence, but not one gave the slightest sign of strength; 
not one enrolled its militia, nor repaired its fortifications. 
Tours, renowned for the tomb of St. Martin, and the miracles 
attributed to it, appeared to be a capital of priests: nothing was 
to be seen within its walls but processions, churches, chapels, 
and books of devotion exposed for sale. Treves and Aries had 
not lost their ancient passion for the games of the circus, and the 
crowd could not tear themselves from the theatre when the bar- 
barians were at their gates. Other towns, and still more the vil- 
lages, remained faithful to their ancient gods; and, spite of the 
edicts of successive emperors, many temples were still conse- 
crated to paganism; many continued so, even to the end of the 
following century. Honorius wished to confer on the cities of 
southern Gaul a diet, at which they might have deliberated on 
public affairs: he did not even find public spirit enough to ac- 
cept the offered privilege. It is true that they suspected, and, 
probably, not without reason, that his edict concealed some pro- 
jects of financial extortion. 

The description we have given of the state of Gaul applies 
equally to that of Spain, where the kings of the Suevi, the Van- 
dals, the Alans, the Silingi, were encamped with their troops and 
their followers in the midst of Roman subjects, who had long'; 
ceased to offer resistance, yet whose abject submission had not 
earned for them the peace of slaves. A great portion of Spain 
was still Roman; but the districts which the barbarians had not 
yet entered had no communication with each other, nor with the 
seat of government: they could hope for no protection from any 
neighbouring aggression. Besides, if the barbarians occasionally 
plundered them with rapacity, or even, at their first coming, 
butchered the inhabitants most exposed to their fury, they after- 
wards protected the remaining population against the extortions 
of tax-gatherers; and the demands of the state were so exces- 
sive, that the people often preferred the sword of the Vandal to 
the staff of the lictor. Even Italy, which was, perhaps, more 



140 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VII. 

uncultivated than any of the distant provinces, — Italy, whose 
richest plains were disfigured by wild forests, or unwholesome 
marshes, — was not exempt from the barbarian yoke. Although 
no longer occupied by a conqueror, she found hard masters in 
the confederates, or auxiliary troops of Germans and Scythians, 
of which the armies were almost entirely composed. Their ty- 
ranny, which was that of the sword, did not, however, preserve 
the inhabitants from the more oppressive power of the Roman 
magistrates. Pannonia and the banks of the Danube were no 
sooner evacuated by the Goths, than they were occupied by other 
nations of barbarians. The Moors and the Gaetuli, and still 
more the fanatical Donatists and Circoncellians, kept Africa in a 
continual state of alarm. In short, there was not a single pro- 
vince of the Western empire in which a uniform government 
was maintained, or in which, under a common protection, man 
could live securely among his fellow-men. 

The influence of the early events of the reign of Arcadius 
and Honorius was universal, and their consequences may, in 
some respects, be perceived to this day. Very different was the 
close of the reign of these indolent, vain, and cowardly princes. 
We should gain but little instruction from any attempt to under- 
stand the base intrigues of their palace; and, with regard to the 
competitors for the empire, who arose successively in Britain, in 
Gaul, in Spain, and at Rome, it would be useless to record their 
names. But, it is remarkable, that, in five years, seven pre- 
tenders to the throne, all very superior to Honorius in courage, 
talents, and virtues, were, in turn, sent captive to Ravenna, or 
punished with death; that the people constantly applauded the 
sentence passed upon them, and maintained their allegiance to 
the legitimate authority. So much progress had already been 
made by the doctrine of the divine right of kings, which the 
bishops had begun to preach under Theodosius; and so fully de- 
termined did the Roman world appear to perish with an imbecile 
monarch, rather than choose for themselves a deliverer. 

Arcadius, who was governed alternately by his ministers, his 
eunuchs, and his wife, died at the age of thirty-one, on the 1st 
of May, 408, and left, at the head of the empire of the East, his 
son, Theodosius II., who was yet a child, with a council of wo- 
men to direct him. The life of Honorius was of longer dura- 
tion; he lived till the 15th of August, 423; but he also left his 
empire to a child, Valentinian III., who was his nephew. This 



CHAP, VII.] REIGNS OF ARCADIUS AND HONORIUSr 14l 

young prince was under the guidance of his mother; she was the 
same Placidia, the sister to Honorius and Arcadius, who had 
married Ataulphus, king of the Visigoths. Her second husband 
was Constantius, one of the best generals of the Western em- 
pire, who obtained the title of Caesar. He was the father of 
Valentinian III., and died before Honorius. 

Never could the helm of the state have passed into the feeble 
hands of women and of children under more unfavourable cir- 
cumstances. The great revolution which was slowly taking 
place throughout the West, was hastened by the minority of the 
two emperors; yet the government of Placidia, though weak, 
was honourable: she had the talent of selecting and attract- 
ing to her court some great men, though she had not the power 
to restrain their passions, nor to make them act consistently for 
the public good. After her death, the world learned to esti- 
mate her loss by the vice and cowardice of her son. (a. d. 450 
--455.) 

As we shall not bestow on these weak emperors the attention 
which it would require to become acquainted with all the scan- 
dalous details of their reigns, neither shall we attach to the bar- 
barian kings of the same period a degree of importance of which 
they are equally unworthy. These kings, powerful as long as 
war lasted, while their whole nation was in action and relied im- 
plicitly upon the prudence of the leader of their choice, ceased 
to be persons of importance as soon as peace was concluded. 
From that moment every German determined to be his own de- 
fender, his own avenger, and to decide alone, and without ad- 
vice, on whatever he judged advantageous; he was little influ- 
enced in his determinations by public authority, and less still by 
that of kings; for the little which was done for the common weal 
was done by the assembly of the people. Thus, the kings are 
only conspicuous by their private conduct, or rather, by their 
crimes and vices; for their virtues could only have been dis- 
played in the administration of government, and in this they had 
no part. To the pride of riches they added the consciousness of 
being above the law; while the encouragements of the flatterers 
who surrounded them, especially of their Roman subjects, who 
excelled the barbarians in the arts of intrigue, carried to an un- 
heard-of pitch the corruption of these chiefs of the people. It 
would be difficult to find, in any class of men, even among those 
whom public justice has consigned to the hulks and the galleys, 

19 



142i FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VII, 

SO many examples of atrocious crimes, assassinations, poisonings, 
and, above all, fratricides, as these royal families afforded 
during the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. It would be un- 
just to the nations they governed to judge of them by the exam- 
ple of their chiefs, who alone occupy a conspicuous station in 
history. It is not the fact, that all feelings of respect for virtue, 
love of kindred, compassion for inferiors, — in a word, that jus- 
tice and humanity were generally extinct among the barbarians, 
notwithstanding all the horrors we find in their annals, and of 
which we have suggested but a small part. But these nations 
were accustomed to consider their kings as a race apart, distin- 
guished from themselves by their long hair^ a race not subject to 
the same laws, nor moved by the same feelings, nor protected 
by the same securities. These kings, keeping themselves aloof 
from all other men, were singular in having family names, and 
in intermarrying only with each other; and we owe to them the 
introduction of that system of relationship between crowned 
heads which was before unknown in the world. 

We have no authentic account of the kings of the Franks 
during the greater part of the fifth century. The reigns of Pha- 
ramond, Clodion, Merovseus, and even Childeric, (a. d. 420 — 
486,) which are found registered in the histories of France, have 
scarcely any foundation in truth. The chronicle which contains 
their names says, that they reigned over the Franks; but, if the 
fact is true, it is still uncertain whether they governed the whole 
©f the nation; the country where they resided is unknown; and, 
in short, no authentic history of their race can, be traced earlier 
than the reign of Clovis. Neither do we know any thing of 
Gondecar, who is supposed to have been king of the Burgun- 
dians from 406 to 463 : the crimes of his four sons, three of whom 
perished in the most horrible manner by fratricide, will be no- 
ticed hereafter. 

The succession of the Visigothic king is better known. More 
civilized than any other of the Germanic tribes, the Visigoths 
permitted a greater stability of the royal authority, and formed 
a united body, even in time of peace. They had also some his- 
torians. 

Ataulphus, who had led the Visigoths into Aquitaine and into 
Spain, who had contracted an alliance with the Romans, and had 
married Placidia, was assassinated at Barcelona, in the month of 
August, 415, by one of his own domestics. His successor Sie- 



CHAP. VII.] VISIGOTHS. SUEVI. 143 

geric put to death six children of Ataulphus by a former wife, re- 
duced Placidia to the wretched state of a captive, and made her 
walk before his horse twelve miles through mirj ways, with the 
rest of the Roman women. He was killed, in his turn, after a 
few days. Wallia, his successor, made a new alliance with the 
Romans, restored Placidia to her brother, and declared war upon 
the other barbarians who had invaded Spain. He conquered 
them in a succession of engagements, exterminated the Silingi, 
and compelled the Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals, to retreat 
into the mountains of Gallicia; he then restored the rest of Spain 
to the empire, and finally settled himself in peace at Toulouse, 
in Aquitaine, where he died, towards the end of the year 418. 
Dietrich, or, according to the Roman corruption, Theodoric, the 
son of the great Alaric, was elected in the room of Wallia, by 
the free choice of his soldiers. During a reign of thirty -three 
years, he established the dominion of the Visigoths in the south 
of Gaul and in Spain. He was killed in 451, in the battle of 
the plains of Champagne, where Attila was defeated. His eld- 
est son, Thorismund, who succeeded him, was assassinated two 
years after by his brother, Theodoric II., who ascended the 
throne^ and he, also, after a reign of thirteen years, (a. d. 453 — 
466,) was murdered by another brother named Euric, who reigned 
from 466 to 484. In these times, fratricide was so common a 
crime among those of royal blood, that, although stained with it, 
Theodoric II. and Euric are justly considered as the two best 
and greatest kings who mounted the throne of the Visigoths. 

The History of the Suevi in Gallicia and part of Lusitania, is 
little knownj but, at the same period, we discover in it sons re- 
volting against fathers, and brothers assassinating brothers. The 
Suevi kept their ground for more than half a century in Spain, 
before they embraced the Christian religion, and became Arians. 
Being surrounded on all sides by the Visigoths, their history con- 
tains merely an account of the wars which they had to maintairi 
against these neighbours; they were long and bloody 5 164 years 
were passed in fighting, before they could be brought to yield. 
In 573, Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, united them to the mo- 
narchy of Spain. 

In the same province, the Alans had been almost destroyed by 
Wallia, in 418. The fate of the Vandals was more remarkable: 
it had a more durable influence upon civilization, and a closer 
connexion with the history of the Roman empire. Like the 



144 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. |[cHAP. VII. 

Suevi and Alans, thej had been conquered by Wallia, and 
driven among the mountains of Galliciaj but, when Spain was 
restored to the officers of Honorius, and afterwards to those of 
Valentinian III., the Vandals, led by their king, Gonderic, again 
spread themselves in Boetica, took Seville and Carthagena, and 
added to the command which they had obtained of the plains, 
the possession of a fleet which they found in the latter city. 
About this time, Gonderic died, and Genseric, his illegitimate 
brother, succeeded him. He was small in stature, lame in con- 
sequence of an accident, and austere in his manners and habits, 
disdaining the luxuries of the people he conquered. He spoke 
slowly and cautiously, inspiring reserve when he was silent, and 
terror when he gave way to the transports of anger. His ambi- 
tion was without bounds, and without scruple: his policy, not 
less refined than that of the civilized people whom he opposed, 
prompted him to employ every kind of stratagem: he knew how 
to captivate the passions of men, while he embraced the whole 
world in the extent of his projects. He had not long been mas- 
ter of Carthagena, when the count Boniface, general of the Ro- 
mans in Africa, sent him an invitation to cross over to that 
country. 

Placidia, who governed the court, and what remained of the 
empire, in the name of her son Valentinian III., had chosen two 
men to direct her councils and her armies who were undoubted- 
ly possessed of great talents, high character, and as much virtue 
as it was possible to preserve under such a government. One of 
these — the patrician ^tius, son of a Scythian who had died in 
the service of the empire — was brought up as a hostage at the 
court of Alaric: he governed Italy and Roman Gaul more by his 
influence over the barbarians than by his authority as a Roman 
magistrate. The other, count Boniface, who was the friend of 
St. Augustin, and reckoned among the protectors of the church, 
governed Africa, ^tius was jealous of his colleague, and re- 
solved to destroy him by driving him to acts of rebellion. With 
the blackest perfidy he engaged Placidia to recall Boniface, and 
at the same time entreated Boniface not to return, but to fly to 
arms if he would preserve his head. Boniface imagined he had 
no resource but in appealing to the enemies of his country. His 
crime, which in its nature was inexcusable, appears to us still 
more so from the extent of its consequences. 

Bj thus opening Africa to tlie Vandals, he not only hastened 



GHAP.VII.J CONQUEST OF AFRICA. 145 

the fall of the empire, but he annihilated the resources of an im- 
mense country, which, in consequence of this first invasion, has 
been lost to Christendom and to civilization 5 preserving to this 
day the name of Barbary, with a government worthy of the 
name. The repentance of Boniface, however, the favour of the 
church, and the friendship of St. Augustin, have transmitted his 
name to posterity without that weight of infamy which would 
have attached to it, if the rights of country had been understood 
in his day. 

Genseric landed upon the shores of Africa in the month of 
May, 429, with about 50,000 men, collected not only among the 
Vandals, but from all the other Germanic adventurers who were 
willing to follow his standard. He invited the Moors, who, at 
the decline of the empire, had recovered some portion of their 
independence and boldness, and seized with joy an opportunity 
for pillage and revenge. He also ranged under his colours the 
Donatists and Circoncellions, who had been driven by persecu- 
tion to the highest pitch of fanaticism; and who, reckoning among 
them three hundred bishops, and several thousands of priests, 
were able to carry with them a large part of the population. 
With these formidable auxiliaries Genseric advanced into Afri- 
ca, less as a conqueror wishing to subdue a rich kingdom, than 
as a ravager bent on destruction. Furious in his hostility to an 
effeminacy which he despised, to riches which might be employed 
against him, to a population which, though subjugated, might keep 
him in dread of revolt, he resolved to lay waste the whole coun- 
try. His excesses have, doubtless, been exaggerated by the ha- 
tred and terror of the Africans; but the total ruin of Africa, and 
the annihilation, as it may almost be called, of the population of 
so vast a country, are facts of which succeeding events leave not 
the smallest doubt. 

Boniface having discovered the perfidy of ^tius, and terri- 
fied at the crime he had himself been led to commit, made vain 
efforts to remedy the frightful evils he had occasioned; but it was 
too late. After being beaten by Genseric in a great battle, he 
concentrated the Roman forces in the three cities of Carthage, 
Hippo, and Artha; the rest of Africa became a prey to the Van- 
dals. Boniface himself withdrew into Hippo, and joined his 
friend, St. Augustin, who died during the siege of that town, the 
28th of August, 430. Some re-enforcements which Boniface re- 
ceived from Italy and the East at the same time, enabled him 



146 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VII. 

once more to take the field. He marched against Genseric; but 
he was conquered, and obliged to evacuate Hippo. He then re- 
tired into Italy, where he soon after died of the consequences of 
a wound which he had received in an engagement with ^tius. 

Between the taking of Hippo and the final reduction of Afri- 
ca, eight years elapsed, during which Genseric 'seemed more oc- 
cupied in shedding the blood of his relations than that of his ene- 
mies. The race of Vandal kings could not escape the common 
fate of barbaric monarchs. Gonderic, the brother of Genseric, 
had left a wife and children whose right to the throne was supe- 
rior to his own. He beheaded the sons, and cast their mother 
into a river of Africa. But it was not without a struggle of some 
duration that he ruined or destroyed all their adherents. Placidia 
believed him to be constantly occupied in parrying or avoiding 
the poniard of the assassin j she depended upon a treaty she had 
made with him; while Genseric was, in fact, preparing his forces 
to surprise Carthage. This great city, the Rome of the African 
world, (as a contemporary calls it,) opened its gates to the Van- 
dals on the 9th of October, 429. The cruelty which had stained 
the triumph of Genseric in the six provinces of Africa, was not 
less conspicuous in the capture of the capital. After a sea of 
blood had been shed, every kind of property was pillaged; even 
the houses and estates near the city were divided among the con- 
querors; and Genseric made it an unpardonable crime for a Car- 
thaginian or Roman to preserve any part of his possessions. 

The loss of Africa was, perhaps, one of the greatest calamities 
which could have overtaken the Western empire: it was the only 
province the defence of which had hitherto been attended with 
no difficulty; the only one which supplied money, arms, and sol- 
diers, without requiring any in return. Africa was also the gra- 
nary of Rome and of Italy. The gratuitous distribution of corn 
among the people of Rome, of Milan, and of Ravenna, had put an 
end to the cultivation of land throughout the peninsula. It was 
impossible for the cost of production to be paid in Italy, while go- 
vernment levied the taxes in kind from the plains of Africa, and 
thus obtained sufl&cient for the support of the Roman people. The 
cessation of this annual tribute, instead of reviving agriculture, 
caused a dreadful famine, and a farther diminution of the popula- 
tion. The part which JEims had borne in the ruin of Africa, by the 
shameful treachery which had been brought to light, must have 
rendered him an object of aversion to Placidia. But a danger 



OHAP. VII.] ATTILA. 147 

now threatened the empire far more alarming than any it had 
known before^ one which involved the whole population; the ex- 
istence of all the cities J the property and the life of every indi- 
vidual; and it was impossible to part with the only general who 
was capable of inspiring the troops with confidence, or of uniting 
into one body the forces of the Romans and of the barbarians: — 
Attila was at hand. 

Attila, the Scourge of God, — such was the name in which he 
delighted, — was the son of Mundzuk, and the nephew of Rugi- 
las, whom he succeeded on the throne of the Huns, in 433. 
That inundation of Tartar hordes which had driven before it the 
Alans, the Goths, and perhaps all the Germanic nations on the 
frontiers of the Roman empire, had made a voluntary halt. 
Having arrived at Dacia, (the modern Hungary,) the Huns had 
been enjoying the riches of the country which they had wrested 
from the Goths and their immediate neighbours. At the time 
when they stayed their conquests, they had ranged themselves 
under different chiefs, who all bore the title of king, and who 
acted in a manner wholly independent of each other. Rugilas 
himself had several brothers, who had, by turns, made war upon 
the Greeks, the Sarmatians, and the Germans, their neighbours. 
Attila also had a brother named Bleda, who shared the throne 
with him; but he proved, by becoming his assassin, that the man- 
ners of the Scythians resembled those of the Germans. He now 
stood alone at the head of that puissant nation of shepherds, 
which would neither enjoy nor endure the possession of civiliza- 
tion or of fixed abode; and he began to make the world tremble 
anew. 

Attila took advantage of the terror with which his uncle Ru- 
gilas had inspired the Greeks, to impose upon Theodosius II., at 
Margus, the most shameful treaty that ever monaixh signed. All 
those among the unfortunate subjects of Attila, or of the king& 
he had conquered, who had sought an asylum on the soil of the 
empire, were delivered up by the Greek ambassador to their fu- 
rious master, and were crucified before his eyes. In like man- 
ner all the Romans who had escaped from his bondage, were re- 
stored to him, unless they could ransom themselves by paying 
twelve pieces of gold. The empire of Constantinople engaged 
to pay an annual tribute of 700 pounds of gold to the empire of 
Scythia: on these conditions Attila allowed Theodosius still to 
reign, while he employed himself in the conquest of the North. 



148 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VII." 

This conquest was the most extensive that had ever been ac- 
complished by armies in the course of one reign. Attila brought 
into subjection the whole of Scythia and Germania. His autho- 
rity appears to have been acknowledged from the confines of 
China to the Atlantic. We are ignorant, however, of the parti- 
culars of his warlike expeditions, as well as of the victories ob- 
tained by his lieutenants. When he ascended the throne he was 
already past the prime of life, and was distinguished from his 
fellow-countrymen much more by his political sagacity than by 
his personal valour or activity. Among the Tartar portion of his 
subjects he had excited a high degree of superstitious enthusiasm, 
by pretending that he had found the sword of the god of War; 
this became his symbol, and, being fixed on the summit of an 
immense pile of wood, received divine honours from the Scy- 
thians. To subjugate the Germans, a different language and 
other artifices were required. But it is not very difficult for a 
barbarian conqueror to obtain the voluntary submission of the 
warlike and savage nations whom he invites to share his con- 
quests, without asking them to change their laws, of which he is 
ignorant and reckless, or to pay him a tribute which their pover- 
ty could not supply. In proposing to them to follow his stan- 
dard to the field, he does but invite them to their favourite 
sport. 

It was for this reason, no doubt, that Attila succeeded, in a 
few years, and with no great difficulty, in causing himself to be 
acknowledged king of kings, by the very nations who had trod- 
den under foot the Roman empire. And he was truly the king 
of kings; for his court was formed of chiefs, who, in offices of 
command, had learned the art of obedience. There were three 
brothers of the race of the Amales, all of them kings of the 
Ostrogoths; Ardaric, king of the Gepidse, his principal confi- 
dant; a king of the Merovingian Franks; kings of the Burgun- 
dians, Thuringians, Rugians, and Heruli, who commanded that 
part of their nation which had remained at home, when the other 
part crossed the Rhine half a century before. The names of a 
great number of other nations who inhabited the vast regions of 
Tartary, Russia, and Sarmatia, are not even come down to us. 

After so many victories, which left no trophies to posterity, 
Attila turned his arms once more against the countries of the 
South. He asserted that the treaty which he had concluded at 
Margus, with the emperor of the East, had been violated by the 



CHAP. VII.] ATTILA. 149 

Greeks; and, putting in motion simultaneously the immense mul- 
titude of warriors who followed his banners, he crossed the Da- 
nube at every point, from high Pannonia to the Black Sea. He 
advanced upon the whole extent of the lUyrian peninsula, de- 
stroying every thing in his way. (a. d. 441—446.) Seventy ci- 
ties were levelled to the ground by his army; villages, houses, 
harvests, all were burnt; and such of the wretched inhabitants 
as escaped the sword, were carried away captive beyond the 
Danube. The Greeks were defeated in three pitched battles, 
and the army of the Huns advanced to the very walls of Con- 
stantinople, which had recently been shaken by an earthquake, 
and fifty-eight of their towers thrown down. 

Yet the empire of the East survived even this devastation: 
some of its provinces were secure from invasion. Theodosius 
II. showed great patience under the sufferings of others. He re- 
built the walls of his capital; and, shut up within the precincts 
of his palace, he scarcely perceived the war that raged without. 
Nevertheless, one negotiator after another was sent to the camp 
of Attila; and, by dint of abject concessions, and of money 
distributed among his ministers, the Greeks induced him to re- 
tire beyond the Danube. Thither their ambassadors followed 
him. In their way to his camp they had to pass over those cities 
of Mcesia where the inhabitants were slain and the houses razed; 
where the place of the streets was only marked by ruins, and 
ashes, and dead bodies. Among the remains of the churches, 
however, they discovered some sick and wounded wretches, who 
had not had strength to crawl away, and who still dragged on a 
miserable existence. The ambassadors were moved to tears as 
they gave alms to the wretched beings who lingered among the 
ruins of Naissus, formerly one of the great arsenals of the em- 
pire. They crossed the Danube in boats, or canoes, formed of 
a single tree hollowed out; for the arts of civilized life had al- 
ready disappeared, and the earth, like its inhabitants, had re- 
lapsed into savageness. 

At the court of Attila, in an obscure village of Hungary, the 
ambassadors from the East found, among the crowd of barbarians 
and of conquered kings, the ambassadors from the West, who 
were come to appease the terrible monarch and to endeavour to 
maintain peace. What formed the strangest, the most incredible 
contrast, was, the paltriness of the motive which brought theia 
there. It was for the sake of some golden vessels belonging to 

20 



150 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [OHAP. VII. 

the church of Sirmium, which Attila pretended to have been 
taken from him at the conquest of that city, that ^tius, or Va-^ 
lentinian III., sent ambassadors from Rome, and that the world' 
was threatened with a war between Tartary and Europe. One 
of the ambassadors of Theodosius was secretly instructed by his 
master to bribe the prime minister of Attila, and persuade him 
to assassinate the dreaded conqueror. The Scythian monarch 
was not ignorant of this treacherous plot; but, though he mani- 
fested his indignation by some violent expressions, and treated 
the Roman name with profound contempt, he respected, even in 
these traitors^ the rights of ambassadors, and left Theodosius m 
peace. 

About the time when Theodosius II. died, (28th of June, 450,) 
and when the Greeks, from an inconceivable veneration for the 
royal blood, bestowed the crown on his sister Puleheria and the 
husband she might marry, (she married Marcian, an old senator,) 
Attila advanced from the banks of the Danube to those of 
the Rhine, to occupy Gaul, at the head of the Germanic na- 
tions. 

At the confluence of the Rhine and the Neckar, he met a par- 
ty of Franks, who had submitted to his authority, and with whom 
he passed the river, took and burned the city of Metz, and de- 
stroyed all its inhabitants: in like manner he laid waste Tongres? 
and, crossing the country as far as the Loire, laid siege to Or- 
leans. 

The patrician iEtius, who governed the West in the name of 
Valentinian III., had establisheil his reputation in Gaul by vic- 
tories over the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths. He 
had scarcely any Roman soldiers in his ranks; but he sedulously 
cultivated the friendship of the Scythians and Alans, from whose 
race he sprang, and had engaged numerous bands of them in the 
service of the empire. He had been careful to conciliate the fa- 
vour of Attila himself, to whom he had intrusted his son, perhaps 
as a hostage, or, possibly, in order to secure his being brought up 
far from the dangers of the imperial court. Nevertheless, he did 
not hesitate to undertake to defend Gaul against him» The an- 
cient inhabitants, the Romans, were without power to resist suck 
an enemy: the barbarians of German race who were established ia 
Gaul, were terrified at the idea of a Tartar invasion, which threat- 
ened to change into a desert that country in which they began t© 
taste the tranquil enjoyments of life, ^tius visited successively 



CHAP. Vri.] ATTILA. 151 

the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths, who 
were able to afford him powerful assistance. He likewise had re- 
course to the smaller tribes, who wandered at will throughout 
Gaul, encouraging them to assemble under his standard. The 
Taifalae, in Poitou; the Saxons, in Bajeuxj the Breones,in Rhsetiaj 
the Alans, in Orleans and at Valence: the Sarmatians, who were 
dispersed over all the provinces, promised him their assistance. 
Other barbarians, who did not form any national body, engaged 
themselves in the mercenary troops of letes anil confederates. 
Even the Armoricans furnished soldiers; and of this collection of 
troops, among whom were to be found every variety of arms and 
of language, ^tius formed the army of the empire. 

But in military skill, and in the power of tactics, the Roman, 
empire retained its superiority to the last stage of its decay. 
When an able general had drawn up his troops and inspired them 
with courage, he was not appalled by the numbers of the enemy. 
Attila was said to have invaded the Gauls with 500,000 men. 
Whatever was the real strength of his army, the multitude of these 
hungry warriors was to him an incumbrance, while to ^tius it 
was an advantage. The king of the barbarians vainly wished to 
take advantage of the most extensive plains of Gaul, to draw out 
all his battalions: he retreated from the environs of Orleans to the 
neighbourhood of Chalons, in Champagne, ^tius pursued him, 
and fiercely disputed with him the possession of a small eminence 
which commanded the rest of the plain, and seemed to both gene- 
rals an important position. At length, Thorismund, the eldest 
son of the king of the Visigoths, remained master of it. Jornan- 
des relates, that the rivulet which flowed at the foot of this hill 
was swollen with blood, till it overflowed its banks like a torrent. 
Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was killed at the commencement 
of the battle, and lay buried under heaps of slain. His son Tho- 
rismund and j3<]ltius were separated from the main body of their 
army, and were very near falling into the hands of the Huns; but 
Attila, mean while, was so alarmed at the prodigious losses he had 
experienced, that he hemmed himself in with a wall of Scythian 
chariots, which he opposed as a fortification to the assailants. 
Night closed in before it was possible to know on which side vic- 
tory lay. Attila's quiescence in the morning showed that he con- 
sidered himself conquered. If the account of an almost contem- 
porary historian may be credited, 162,000 men lay dead on the 
field of battle. 



152 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VII* 

This victory was the last that adorned the annals of Rome: if it 
did not preserve her from ruin, we^ at least, have been saved by 
it; — saved from Tartar barbarism and Russian civilization. If the 
empire of Attilahad been perpetuated, if it had spread over Gaul 
and the temperate regions of Europe, perhaps the nature of the 
country would have led the Huns to renounce their pastoral life, 
as the Moguls renounced it in India, and the Mantchou Tartars 
in China: but the vices of the nation, stamped upon it by servitude, 
would have been perpetuated, as they have been in Russia — as 
they have been wherever the Tartar has ruled; and the nations 
which at this day diffuse light and knowledge throughout the 
globe, would scarcely have been in a condition to receive what 
might have reached them from without. 

It is, indeed, with astonishment and admiration, that we contem- 
plate the most formidable power which ever affrighted the world, 
dashed to pieces against the last ruins of ancient civilization . The 
Roman empire had declined so rapidly, that it is difficult to ima- 
gine how it furnished aspirants to a throne so surrounded with dan- 
ger and disgrace. But the dominion of Attila was overthrown 
to the very dust, before that of Theodosius fell. iEtius did not 
care to disturb the retreat of the Scythian conqueror, who was 
formidable even in defeat: he waited until he ventured to seek 
his revenge, and to attack the Romans anew. In the campaign 
which followed (a. d. 452,) Attila poured forth his troops from Pan- 
nonia, passed the Julian Alps, and advanced to the siege of Aqui- 
leia. The extent of his ravages, and the certainty of having no 
mercy from the barbarian, produced an effect upon the people of 
Italy that led to the erection of a splendid monument, which has 
perpetuated to our days the memory of the terror he inspired. 
All the inhabitants of that rich part of the plain of Italy which is 
situated at the mouths of the great rivers, and called Venetia, 
took refuge in the low lands, upon the islands, almost covered 
with water, which choke the mouths of the Adige, the Po, the 
Brenta, and the Tagliamento. There they sheltered themselves 
under huts made of branches, and transported thither a small part 
of their wealth. In a short time they constructed more commo- 
dious habitations, and several small cities were seen to rise as it 
were out of the waters. Such was the origin of Venice; and that 
haughty republic justly called herself the eldest daughter of the 
Roman empire. She was founded by the Romans while the em- 



CHAP. VII.] DEATH OF ATTILA. 153 

pire was yet standing, and the independence which characterized 
her early years was still inviolate to our own time. 

Aquileia withstood a lengthened siege; but all the other cities 
of northern Italy,— Milan, Pavia, Verona, and, perhaps, even 
Turin, as well as Como, at the foot of the Helvetian and Gallic 
Alps, — opened their gates to the conqueror. Disease, the natu- 
ral consequence of the intemperance, the violence, and the vices 
of a barbarian army, avenged, as they may again avenge, the 
Italians; and Attila began to feel the pressing necessity of lead- 
ing back his companions in arms to a country less pernicious to 
natives of a northern clime, when the ambassadors of Valentinian 
and the senate of Rome came to demand peace. They were ac- 
companied by pope Leo I. The striking figure and calm self- 
possession of the venerable pontiff inspired the people with re- 
spect, and struck awe into every heart, not even excepting that 
of the pagan king, although he had professed himself a prophet. 
With a moderation unknown to him, perhaps the effect, in some 
measure, of religious fear, he granted peace to the empire. In 
the following year, (a. d. 453,) Attila died in Dacia, during 
the intoxication of a banquet. His empire fell with him. Ardaric, 
his favourite, established the monarchy of the Gepidae in Dacia, 
between the Carpathian mountains and the Black Sea, in the 
very spot which had been regarded by Attila as the seat of his 
power. The Ostrogoths took possession of Pannonia, between 
Vienna and Sirmiumj and Irnak, the youngest son of Attila, re- 
tired with the Huns into Little Tartary, where the remnant of 
this people were enslaved, some years after, by the Igours, who 
issued from the plains of Siberia. 



( 154 ) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Tall of the Western Empire. — ■Rome taken and sacked by Genseric, called 
in by Eudoxia, "Widow of Valentinian 111. — Ten Emperors in twenty-three 
Years. — Odoacer. — Final Extinction of the P'orm of the Empire in the 
"West. — Chang'e unimportant to the People. — Their wretched Condition. 
— Some Cities of the West retain their Allegiance to the Eastern Empire. 
— Growth of the Frankic Monarchy. — Chlodwig", commonly called Clovis. 
— His Victory over Syagrius. — His Marriage with Chlotilde of Burgundy. 
— His Conversion. — Battle of Tolbiac. — His Baptism. — His Wars with the 
Burgundians, and with the Visigoths. — His Treaciiery. — His Assassination 
of all the Kings of his Family. — His Protection of the Church. — Miracles 
attributed to him. — Limited Power of the Frankic Kings. — Sovereignty 
of the Army. — State of Government. — Death of Clovis.^A. d. 476 — 511. 

It is impossible not to remark, in communities and in nations, 
a principle of vitality, a power of resistance, which is brought 
into action after great calamities, and prolongs the existence of 
sinking states when they seemed on the brink of annihilation. 
This power has, in its effects, a resemblance to the vital energy 
which exists in man and other organized beingsj but it is not, 
like that, one of the mysteries of nature. On the contrary, the 
principle of which we are speaking, is the necessary, the easily 
anticipated consequence of those efforts which each individual 
makes to improve his condition, and to defend himself from the 
common calamities, or to meet them with the smallest possible 
injury: in thus providing for his own security, he is really la- 
bouring for the preservation of the community to which he be- 
longs. 

On every side, the empire of Rome had been surrounded by 
causes which conspired to work its ruin. During the three first 
centuries, it had constantly been declining; and when we recol- 
lect that, in the century and a half which followed, — a period 
which we have examined in detail, — the empire was assailed by 
attacks, any of which seemed sufficient to overthrow it, our only 
wonder will be how it continued to exist. 

The vital principle exhibited in the human frame often repairs 
the ravages of disease, or entirely surmounts them. Although, 
in some cases, it does but prolong the sufferings of the body, we 
are not permitted to endeavour to abridge these sufferings; for 



HAP. VIII.] VITALITY OF EMPIRES. 155 

we know not but the moral may become perfect through the pains 
of the physical being. It would be a fiction of the fancy, how- 
ever, to attribute to social bodies the properties or the sensitive- 
ness of individual natures^ and we must not allow our pity and 
regret for the long decline of Rome, nor our reverence for all its 
grandeur and its glory, — for the thousand recollections about to 
be obliterated, — to make us forget that truer compassion which 
we owe to men like ourselves; to whole generations that endured 
the lingering torments of their country's expiring state, and the 
burden of all its calamities. 

The revolution which overthrew the Roman empire, and swept 
away the ancient forms of civilization from the earth, made room 
for new combinations and new social institutions, and led to pro- 
gress of another kind. It was, perhaps, the most important of 
all the convulsions which have agitated the human race. It was 
time for this great change to take place; it was time that the uni- 
versal languor and feebleness of soul which lowered the charac- 
ter of humanity should give place to a new principle of virtue, 
or, at least, to a new principle of action. 

Large empires derive a power of self-preservation from their 
size: it is their privilege to be able to endure bad government in 
proportion to their extent. Ancient Greece afforded instances 
of odious tyrants, whose names are for ever covered with infamy. 
Yet, neither Dionysius of Syracuse, nor Phalaris, nor Pisistra- 
tus, would have been able to inflict upon their fellow citizens 
such calamities as those to which the subjects of the bad empe- 
rors were exposed. Never would those men have thought of con- 
founding the innocent with the guilty in one universal proscrip- 
tion; of razing a city to the ground, or putting all its inhabitants 
to the sword: such conduct would have been their own destruc- 
tion, since the city wsls their whole domain. On the contrary, 
the merciless acts committed by the emperors, the national chas- 
tisements which they inflicted, as well as the calamities resulting 
from the wars in which they engaged, were extensive in propor- 
tion to the size of their territory. 

But man does not become the less sensible of his suff*eringS5 be- 
cause the state to which he belongs is of vast dimension; and 
the number of victims to a single act of cruel(y, or a single fault, 
exceeded all belief. In like manner, the conduct of a weak, 
vain monarch, who persisted in a disastrous war, produced con- 
sequences not in proportion to the character of the man, but to 



156 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

the extent of his kingdom. The obstinacy of TheoHosius II. 
within the walls of Constantinople, or of Honorius at Ravenna, 
which thej mistook for noble daring, produced the entire devas- 
tation of Illjricura, Gaul, and Italy. No empire but that of 
Rome could have withstood such shocks. From the time when 
the monarchy of Attila had fallen, and the Goths and Vandals, 
established in their new country, had begun to exchange the 
work of destruction for that of preservation, the empire of the 
"West had regained a chance of prolonging its languishing exis- 
tence; for that of the East, which was scarcely less enfeebled, or 
less surrounded by powerful foes, maintained itself a thousand 
years longer. Ravenna, the seat of government, was equally 
sheltered from foreign invasion; and if the empire had enjoyed 
a period of tranquillity like that which Italy obtained a few years 
after the extinction of the Western emperors, so great is the 
predilection of every people for an old established authority, 
and so strong their preference for evils with which they are fa- 
miliar, to untried and doubtful reform, that in all probability 
the alteration which had been the result of force, would have 
been admitted into the frame- work of society. A new organi- 
zation would have brought about a closer connexion between 
the centre of government and those provinces which were not 
conquered; and the state, superior in extent to any in modern 
Europe, would have recovered the means of resistance. 

But monarchical states are not only subject to the calamities 
which assail them from without, through the jealousy or hatred 
of their neighbours; they have also the chance of falling under 
the sway of the most stupid, or the basest of mankind. These 
chances of succession were fatal to the empire of the West. 
From the death of Attila, in 453, to the extinction of the imperial 
dignity, in 475, ten emperors, in the space of twenty-three years, 
succeeded each other on the throne; and the ten revolutions 
which hurled them from it were more than so frail a structure 
could resist. 

These revolutions were in a great degree attributable to the 
last descendant of the great Theodosius. Valentinian III. had 
reached the age of manhood; his mother was dead, Boniface was 
dead, Attila was dead. Valentinian imagined the highest pri- 
vilege of the imperial dignity to be that of securing impunity for 
all the vices which subject private individuals to the punishment 
of the laws. The greatness and renown of .^tius vi^ere irksome 



CHAP. VIII.] VALENTINIAN III. MAXIMUM. t57 

to him; and the first time his coward hand brandished a sword^ 
he employed it, with the help of his eunuchs and courtesans, 
to kill the general who had saved, and who alone could still save, 
the empire. In less than a year after, (March 16, 455,) he was 
assassinated, in his turn, by Petronius Maximus, a sanatory 
whose wife he had insulted. 

Maximus was then acknowledged emperor^ but the people 
found in him nothing deserving of supreme power. It was 
equally impossible for the Romans not to despise the descendants- 
of Theodosius, and not to extend their contempt to those men 
who, devoid of either virtues or talents, took advantage of the~ 
fall of these princes to raise themselves to the throne. 

As nothing indicated clearly where the right to sovereign 
power resided, the road to it was again laid open to ambition^ 
intrigue, and crime. The sufferings and the ignominy of the 
Roman empire were increased by a new calamity which hap- 
pened in the year of Valentinian's death. Eudoxia, the widow 
of that emperor, who had afterwards become the wife of Maximus, 
avenged the murder of her first husband, by plotting against her 
second I reckless how far she involved her country in the ruin» 
She invited to Rome Genseric, king of the Vandals, who not 
content with having conquered and devastated Africa, made 
every effort to give a new direction to the rapacity of his subjects^ 
by accustoming them to maritime warfare, or, more properly 
speaking, piracy. His armed bands^ who, issuing from the shores 
of the Baltic, had marched over the half of Europe, conquering 
wherever they went, embarked in vessels which they procured 
at Carthage, and spread desolation over the coasts of Sicily and 
Italy. On the 12th of June, 455, they landed at Ostia. Max- 
imus was killed in a seditious tumult excited by his wife. De- 
fence was impossible; and from the 15th to the .2&th of June, the 
ancient capital of the world was pillaged by the Vandals with a, 
degree of rapacity and cruelty to which Alaric and the Goth& 
had made no approach. The ships of the pirates were moored 
along the quays of the Tiber, and were loaded with a booty which 
it would have been impossible for the soldiers to carry off by land. 
The unhappy Romans were compelled, by protracted tortures, to 
discover all their hidden treasures: neither were they secure from 
the cupidity of Genseric's troops when stripped of all they pos- 
sessed. The hope of extorting a ransom from their relations or 
friends led to thousands of noble captives being carried over i& 



158 FALL OF THE HOMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

Carthage. Eutloxia herself shared in the miseries which she 
had brought upon Rome: Genseric forcibly carried her off, with 
her two daughters, the only survivors of the race of Theodosius 
the Great, in one of his vessels, and in spite of the attachment 
the Romans had recently shown to the hereditary claims of this 
family, they found themselves, against their wishes, reinvested 
with the power of bestowing the crown on a ruler of their choice. 
This prerogative falling to a people alike devoid of national spirit 
and of protecting institutions, of respect for justice or for virtue, 
could not fail to prove fatal. The Gauls, the Greeks, the con- 
federate barbarians who composed the army, all in turn contend- 
ed for the privilege of giving a chief to the empire; and the fa- 
vourite of one party was no sooner invested with the purple, than 
a hostile faction rose up to dethrone him. 

In the calamitous period of twenty-one years, which embraces 
the last convulsive struggles of the Western empire (a. d. 455— 
476,) one man signalized himself above all those ephemeral em- 
perors whom he created or dethroned at his will, without having 
it in his power to occupy their place. This was the patrician 
Ricimer, a Swabian or Suevus by birth, and the son of the daugh- 
ter of Wallia, king of the Visigoths. A popular sentiment, 
which it is surprising to discover in a country where there could 
not be said to be a people, rose in opposition to this barbarian, 
when he would have assumed the purple; though the men he no- 
minated to wear it were sure to be elected. The haughty Swa- 
bian, disdaining to obey those whom he considered as his own 
creatures, accomplished their downfal before they were well 
seated on the throne. He thus destroyed the very root of civil 
authority and obedience. He died the 20th of August, 472. At 
this period, the provinces of the West acknowledged no other 
power than that of the barbarian troops, who took the name of 
Confederates: these men governed Italy. Two of their chiefs, 
who came in the train of the king of the Huns, next contended 
for the empire. 

Orestes, a patricius of Pannonian extraction, who had long 
served Attila as secretary and ambassador, placed upon the throne 
his own son Romulus Augustus, who, in mockery of his youth, 
was called Agustulus; while Odoacer, the son of Edecon, another 
minister of Attila, excited the Confederates to revolt against the 
chief they had just elected. He promised them a third of the 
soil of Italy to divide amongst them; caused Orestus to be put to 



CHAP. VIII.] ODOACER. 159 

death, and shut up his son in Lucullus's villa, in Campania, with- 
out choosing to appoint his successor. 

Thus, in 476, was accomplished the extinction of the empire of 
the West. But this revolution, so important in our eyes, which 
forms so marked an epoch in history, was so disguised from the 
view of contemporaries, that they did not foresee its consequences. 
Odoacer compelled the senate of Rome to send away the im- 
perial insignia to Zeno, emperor of Constantinople; declaring, 
that one ruler was sufficient to govern the whole empire. He 
conveyed a request to this emperor, that he might himself be al- 
lowed to govern the diocess of Italy, under the title of Patri- 
cius. It is true, he also took the appellation of King. This 
was a barbaric dignity, which had not been held incompatible 
with the command of an army, or of a Roman province. It 
rather denoted a ruler of men, than of territory. It was con- 
ferred on Odoacer by his soldiers, among whom the Heruli were, 
probably, the most numerous; whence he is often represented as 
king of the Heruli. Mean while, the imperial government was 
little changed from what it had been during the last century in 
Italy; that is to say, the power was completely in the hands of 
armed barbarians; while, at the same time, the senate of Rome 
continued to assemble as usual; the consuls were appointed year- 
ly, one by the East, the other by Italy; the imperial laws were 
proclaimed in Italy, and respected as before; and none of the 
municipal or provincial authorities were changed. It is difficult 
to discover what that public opinion was, and under what form 
it was expressed, which had still power to prevent the sovereign 
of Italy and of the army from taking upon himself the title of Ro- 
man Emperor, and to convince him that he was too weak to attempt 
the suppression of rights and claims which he was unable to as- 
sert for himself, although he could not endure to see them grant- 
ed to another. We should look in vain for Romans, or for 
Italians, who had still so far preserved the dignity of their an- 
cient prejudices as to repel a master who should adopt the title 
of King of Rome or of Italy. Odoacer, however, felt that such 
a power existed, and took care not to oppose it. He founded 
anew the kingdom of Italy, and called it by another name. 
He was independent, without daring to appear so. By the dis- 
tribution of lands in Italy among the confederate soldiers, he 
satisfied their cupidity without relaxing their discipline; and as 
he no longer recruited his army with the barbarian adventurers 



160 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

who had yearly flocked to his standard, he kept it within mode- 
rate limits, though sufficiently powerful to guard his frontiers. 
He made no attempt to extend his dominions beyond Italy, from 
which Sicily and Sardinia had already been separated by the in- 
vasions of Genseric: on one occasion, however, he made war 
against lllyricum, and on another against Noricum, with equal 
success. The whole extent of country between the Alps and 
the Danube had been fertilized by Roman agriculture, and en- 
riched by Roman commerce, and by the residence of Roman le- 
gions: it was looked upon as the nursery of the best soldiers of 
the empire. But^it had been so devastated by successive invasions, 
that the race of its Roman inhabitants was nearly extinct, and 
was succeeded by barbarians of whose history nothing is known. 
The Rugians, who possessed it at the time of which we are speak- 
ing, were conquered by Odoacer, and great numbers of them 
brought captive into Italy, to assist in the cultivation of the 
deserts of that country. Deserts they might truly be called. 
The population had been swept away by every scourge under hea- 
venj war, plague, famine, public tyranny, and domestic slavery. 
Throughout the preceding century, the existence of the people 
had been entirely artificial. They were principally supported 
by the distributions of corn, which the emperors had bound them- 
selves to continue at Rome, Milan, and other great towns where 
the court resided. The largesses had ceased with the loss of 
Africa and the ruin of Sicily. Odoacer did not attempt to re- 
new them. Mean while, most of the landed proprietors had ceased 
to cultivate their estates: there was little encouragement to incur 
great expense in growing corn, which was afterwards given 
away in the market-place. The rearing of cattle had for a time 
superseded the cultivation of grainy but both the herds, and the 
slaves who tended them, had been carried off by continual incur- 
sions of barbarians. The desolation of these regions is fre- 
quently expressed in simple yet affecting language in the con- 
temporary letters of the saints. Pope Gelasius, (a. d. 496,) 
speaks of Emilia, Tuscany, and other provinces, in which the 
human race was almost extinct. St. Ambrose, of the towns of 
Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Piacenza, which remained deserted, 
together with the adjacent country. Those who have seen the 
Campagna di Roma in our own days, have witnessed the deso- 
lation of a country ruined by bad laws, even more than by foreign 
aggression. Let them imagine the gloomy scenery which now 



CHAP. Vlir.] THE FRANKS. 161 

surrounds the capital, extended over every part of Italy, and 
they will have some idea of the kingdom of Odoacer. 

The usurpation of Odoacer had relaxed, but not severed, the 
tie which united the more distant western provinces to the em- 
pire. Several districts of Spain, and particularly the sea-coast, 
had preserved their independence against the Suevi and the Vi- 
sigoths; some towns in Africa had escaped the attacks of the 
Vandals; and there were provinces in the centre of Gaul which 
obeyed neither the Franks, Burgundians, nor Visigoths. In those 
territories which had been occupied by the barbarians, they were 
looked upon (according to the legal expression which assigned 
them their quarters) as guests, rather than as masters. The 
inhabitants did not cease to consider themselves as Romans; and 
they long retained their name, their language, their customs, and 
their laws. The eyes of all were turned towards Constantinople; 
they all recognised as their emperor, Zeno, (a. d. 4T4 — 491,) who 
had succeeded to Leo, (a. d. 457 — 474,) upon the Eastern throne. 
The Greek emperors escaped the storm which raged around 
them, by their good fortune more than by their wisdom. They 
were unacquainted with the languages of the western provinces, 
which they despised as barbarian; and they were alike ignorant 
of their condition and of their interests. They had no means of 
defending, scarcely any of governing them; and, as they had no 
chance of drawing supplies from them, they abandoned their ad- 
ministration to men of wealth and rank, who assumed the title 
of Count of the several cities. These counts flattered the em- 
peror in their correspondence, and were flattered, in return, by 
imperial titles: the power they exercised was that of indepen- 
dent sovereigns. 

^gidius, count of Soissons, seems to have been one of the 
most powerful of these nobles of Gaul, who, during the decline 
of the empire, were indebted to their wealth for a kind of sove- 
reignty. He gained several advantages over the Visigoths, at 
the head of an army of Franks accustomed to serve in the pay 
of Rome; a circumstance which has caused it to be said that he 
reigned over the Franks during the exile of Childeric, the father 
of Clovis. His son, Afranius Syagrius, also governed Soissons 
with the title of Count, during the ten years which succeeded 
the fall of the Roman empire, (a. d. 476 — 486.) He was, by 
these means, brought into the neighbourhood of the Franks, who 
were ancient allies of the empire, and accustomed to fight under 



162 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. VIII. 

its banner for payment; but he had nothing left to offer them, — 
neither battles nor spoils. The Franks, however, w^ithoiit 
making war, had contrived to extend their frontier in Belgium. 
They were become masters of Tournai, Cambray, Terouane, and 
Cologne; and, in each of these cities, they had a different king. 
All these petty kings ascribed their origin to Merovseus (Meer- 
wig, or Sea Hero,) for the date of whose half fabulous existence 
we must rather go back to the first appearance of the Franks, 
about the year 250, than to the middle of the fifth century, 
where it is commonly placed. There was one among them, — a 
young man, scarcely twenty years of age, — who was greatly 
distinguished by his personal appearance, and by his bravery, 
and who had already reigned five years over the Franks of Tour- 
nai. His name was Clovis;* he was the son of Childeric, who 
had been banished on account of the licentiousness of his man- 
ners; but who was afterwards recalled by his tribe when age 
had calmed his passions. Like all the rest of his race, he wor- 
shipped the gods of Germania; but his enthusiastic mind was 
ever ready to credit all the prodigies which were related to him 
by the priests of a different religion, who easily won him over to 
their belief. In 486, he proposed to the warriors of Tournai, of 
the tribe of the Salian Franks, to go and share the riches of their 
Roman neighbours, who neither knew how to defend them, nor 
how to bestow them upon other defenders. Not more than 3000 
or 4000 Franks answered his appeal, and took up their francisque 
or war hatchet, ready to follow him. Ragnacar, another king of 
the Franks, at Cambray, came with his followers to join the 
standard of Clovis. They sent a message of defiance to Sya- 
grius. The Roman count was not so formidable as to make it 
necessary to resort to surprise; nevertheless, he occupied the 
frontier, and all the soldiers north of the Seine, calling them- 
selves Roman or legionary, or letes or federal, assembled at his 
order. The armies met; Syagrius was beaten, and the Franks 
took and pillaged Soissons. Syagrius, in his flight, crossed the 
Seine; but the cities along this river and the Loire, although 
calling themselves Roman, had taken no thought about their fu- 
ture safety. They possessed no soldiers, no treasure, no means 
of resistance. 

• The Roman corruption of Chlodwig, or, in modern German, Ludwig; 
in Modern French, Louis. — (Tbabts. ) 



CHAP. VIII.] ST. GREGORY OF TOURS. 163 

Sjagrius could obtain no succour from them; he, therefore, 
passed the Loire, and advanced to Toulouse, to crave the assist- 
ance of Alaric II., who had reigned for two years over the Visi- 
goths. The counsellors of this king, who was yet a child, 
thought the moment favourable for extinguishing the last remains 
of Roman power. They took Syagrius, therefore, and loading 
him with chains, sent him back to Clovis, who suflfered him to 
die in prison. 

And this is nearly all that we can ever know concerning the 
combats which finally annihilated the dominion of the Romans 
in Gaul, and laid the foundation of the French monarchy. The 
task of the historian is no longer what it was, when, following 
the annals of Rome, he had to choose from rich and varied ma- 
terials; to combine, to reconcile, to select. Grief and shame 
had reduced almost all the west of Europe to silence. Who, 
indeed, could wish to preserve the details of revolutions, every 
crisis of which exposed to view the vices of the people and of 
the government? The Germans could not write, the Romans 
would not. One man alone, a prelate and a saint, — Gregory, 
bishop of Tours, — undertook, at the end of the following centu- 
ry, to make known to us the origin of the French monarchy; 
and, by his work, he affords the only light that has been thrown 
upon the other countries of the West. It has been abridged, 
and copied, and amplified, by turns, from the seventh century to 
our own time: but commentaries serve only to mislead us; we 
must consult the original, if we wish to come at truth. Thi& 
rude narrative ought to satisfy us; it exhibits, at once, the man- 
ners of the age, and the opinions of the church; and though it 
consists almost entirely of a tissue of crimes, we ought not has- 
tily to turn from its perusal. It is right to know what we have 
to dread from the various revolutions of human society. We 
shall set a higher value on the virtues of our contemporaries, and 
on the happiness we enjoy, and we shall endure with greater pa- 
tience the evils which accompany all human institutions, when^ 
we know what our ancestors really were. 

Clovis had fixed himself at Soissons. The rich booty whiclx 
he had divided among his victorious warriors, and which, accord- 
ing to the custom of the Franks, had been distributed by lot in 
equal portions amongst all the soldiers, had drawn fresh adven- 
turers to their standards. There was no other king of the Franks 
who seemed to equal him in activity and courage; and the Ger- 



164 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

man was always free to choose the chief with whom he preferred 
to share the dangers of the war. Nearly a third part of Gaul, 
from the Oise to the Loire, was given up without defence to the 
pillage or conquest of the Franks. We have no record of their 
progress in these provinces. Whatever may have been the weak- 
ness and cowardice of the Romans, it was impossible for an army 
of 4000 men to occupy, at once, their rural domains and their 
cities. Fourteen years elapsed between the first victory of 
Clovis over Syagrius, and the time when the Loire, the Mozelle, 
the Jura, and the Rhine, formed the boundaries of his kingdom. 
During this period, from 486 to 500, the Romans negotiated with 
him, in hopes of lightening the yoke which they were forced to 
bear. They sent a deputation to the conqueror, and, by the 
payment of tribute money, bought his protection. 

The bishops, on their side, were intent on the conversion of 
the king who was to reign over them. They found his mind ac- 
cessible to that fanaticism with which they wished to inspire it; 
and as he was not yet a Christian, nor consequently imbued with 
a sectarian partiality, they imagined he would be more favoura- 
ble to orthodox opinions than the kings of the Burgundians and 
Visigoths, who were Arians. They resolved to take advantage 
of his fondness for women, to gain him over to their side, and, 
after causing him to divorce his wife, — who was a Frank and a 
pagan, and the mother of his eldest son, — Aurelian, a Gaul, the 
Christian adviser of Clovis, negotiated his marriage with Chlo- 
tilde. 

The barbarian kings intermarried with none but women of 
royal blood; and Clovis would have scorned the daughter of a 
subject. He was not yet powerful enough to obtain the daugh- 
ter of a king of the Vandals, the Burgundians, or the Visigoths; 
but Chlotilde was at the same time of royal descent, and perse- 
cuted. Gondicar, king of the Burgundians, who died in 463, 
had left four sons, each of them bearing the title of king, com- 
manding the armies, and sharing the conquests of their nation. 
But Gondebald, the eldest of these four princes, took away the 
life of his three brothers in succession. Having surprised two 
of them, Chilperic and Godemar, in their residence at Vienne, 
he killed Chilperic, who had surrendered himself his prisoner, 
with his own hand; ordered his wife to be thrown into the Rhone 
with a stone tied round her neck; and her two sons to be be- 
headed, and their bodies cast into a well. 



CHAP. VIII.] CLOVIS. CHLOTILBE, 165 

Two daughters remained captive: one of these was Chlotilde, 
Godemar, the other brother^ had taken refuge in a tower; but the 
savage Gondebald had the lower part filled with combustibles, 
and burned him alive. The fourth brother, Godegesily perished 
ten years later. 

Chlotilde, wha escaped the disastrous fate of her house, is sup- 
posed to have been, in confinement at Geneva. She had beeiK 
educated by an orthodox bishop. She was handsome, and en- 
thusiastic; and she felt it an act of piety to hate her persecutor^ 
She abhorred him as the murderer of h«r neure&t kindred, and, 
still more, because he was. an Arian; but she dissembled her ha- 
tred at the moment of her marriage. Gondebald,, like many 
other kings, thought his crimes forgotten, as soon as he could 
forget them himself, and consented to the marriage of his niece 
with Clovis, as a bond of union between the two nations. Ste.> 
Chlotilde, as she was called by the priests, was very imperfectly 
known to her uncle Gondebald. No length of time, no attempts 
at reconciliation, nx) benefits conferred, could eradicate from her 
heart the hatred she had conceived. Her marriage was cele^ 
brated in 493 5 and, thirty years after, she demanded and ob- 
tained the vengeance for which slie had constantly panted. The 
confidence which the bishops of Gaul had placed in the charms^ 
of Chlotilde was fully justified. She converted her husband^, 
persuatled him first to have his children baptized; and afterwards 
prevailed on him to seek the protection of her God in a moment 
of danger. 

In 490,. the Allemans had invaded all the country which lieS' 
between the Moselle and the Meuse. To the Franks, this was 
a national war; all their tribes assembled, and gave battle to the 
aggressors at Tolbiac, four leagues from Cologne. They were 
repulsed, however, and seemed upon the point of being routed,, 
when Clovis invoked the God of Chlotilde: animated with fresh 
courage, he again attacked the enemy; the Alleman chief was 
slain; and his soldiers immediately offered to join the standard of 
Clovis, and acknowledge him as their king. The two nations 
spoke the same language, their origin was the same, and their 
manners and customs were similar; they were, therefore, easily 
united; and Clovis returned from the field of Tolbiac at the head 
of an army much more numerous than that which he had led 
thither, or than any which he had ever before commanded. He 

22 



166 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

was acknowledged king by his enemies, and suzerain or chief by 
the other kings of the Franks, who till then had been his equals. 

On his return to Soissons, his seat of empire, Clovis became 
one of the catechumens of St. Remi, the archbishop of Rheims: 
his soldiers, carried away like himself by the universal belief of 
the people amongst whom they lived, by the miracles which they 
heard attested, and by the magnificence of the catholic worship, 
readily followed his example. On Christmas-day, 496, he re- 
paired, with an army of only 3000 soldiers, to the cathedral of 
Rheims, where St. Remi poured upon him the water of baptism, 
uttering these words, which have been handed down to us: — 
" Bow down thy head, oh ! Sicambrian, with humility. Adore 
what thou hast burnt, and burn what thou hast adored. " The 
joy of the clergy throughout Gaul was boundless, when they 
heard of the conversion of king Clovis. In him, the orthodox 
believers gained a defender and an avenger; a persecutor of 
their rivals, at the moment when their need was greatest. For 
the emperor Zeno at Constantinople, and all the barbarian kings, 
' — at Ravenna, at Yienne, at Toulouse, at Carthage, in Spain and 
in Germany,— were either heretic or pagan. Hence it is, that 
the king of the Franks has been called the eldest son of the 
church. St. Avitus, archbishop of Vienne, on the Rhone, wrote 
to Clovis, — " Your faith is our victory." This prelate was a 
Burgundian subject; but he rejoiced in the expectation that 
Clovis would attack the rulers of his nation; and all the clergy 
of Gaul, whether they were subject to the Burgundians or Visi- 
goths, showed the same zeal for the future triumph of Clovis. 
At the same time, the confederated towns of Armorica, which 
hitherto had defended themselves against the barbarians by the 
force of their own arms, offered to treat with Clovis. They en- 
tered into an alliance with him, or, rather, became incorporated 
m his nation; and the Armoricans were placed upon an equal 
footing with the Franks. All the barbarian soldiers that re- 
mained scattered throughout Gaul, who till then had followed 
the standards of Rome, under the name of Letes or Confederates, 
were, in like manner, adopted by the Frankic nation; the new 
king saw his empire extending to the ocean; to the Loire, which 
separated it from the Visigoths; to the mountains around Langres, 
the boundary of the Burgundian territory; and to the Rhine, 
which divided it from the independent Franks. 

Such an extent of conquest might have sufficed to satisfy the 



CHAP. VIII.] CLOVIS. 167 

ambition of the little chieftain of 3000 warriors. But Clovis 
knew that he could only maintain his influence over his compa- 
nions in arms by new victories, and by holding out fresh booty 
to their rapacity. Many of the soldiers lamented the submission 
of the Roman provinces. Each of those protected by Clovis was 
rescued from the cupidity of plunderers: but he endeavoured 
to persuade them, that whatever additions he had made to 
his territory, there would always remain in Gaul, provinces 
to pillage, estates to parcel out, and inhabitants to reduce to 
slavery. 

Clovis sought an occasion of quarrel with the two nations 
which shared with him the empire of Gaul; but with that policy 
to M^hich he owed success, even more than to his valour, he be- 
gan by giving them insidious counsels before he attempted to sur- 
prise them. 

The Burgundians were first the object of his attack. Tliey 
were governed by the two brothers of Chlotilde: Godegesil, who 
had fixed his seat at Geneva; and Gondibard, who resided at 
Vienne. The kingdom was not divided between them, but each 
had endeavoured to secure a large number of warriors, or Leudes: 
this name, which answers to lieges,* describes those partisans at- 
tached to their chiefs by benefits conferred. Each of the bro- 
thers, in distrust of the other, had retired to as great a distance 
as possible, to escape from perfidious snares, and to enjoy at li- 
berty the pleasures then attached to kingly power. From this 
mutual dread proceeded the custom so universal among barba- 
rians, of designating kings by the name of their capitals, rather 
than by that of their provinces. One was king at Vienne, the 
other king at Geneva, but both of them were kings of the Bur- 
gundians. In the year 500, Clovis gained over Godegesil: he 
persuaded him to separate himself from his brother at the mo- 
ment when the Franks were giving battle to his countrymen; 
and as a reward for his compliance, he promised to assist him in 
gaining sole possession of the throne of the Burgundians. He 
then declared war upon this people, and led on his Franks to the 
combat. The two nations met upon the banks of the Ousche, 
near Dijon; but at the very moment when the battle was about 
to begin, Godegesil, with all his forces, deserted the national 
banner, and joined that of Clovis. Gondebald, in dismay, took 
to flight, and could not believe himself safe until he had shut 

* Xewife— people. (German.)— (Transl.) 



168 FALl Of tHfi ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. YIII. 

himself up in Avignon. Godegesil lost no time in reaching his 
brother's palace at Vienne, and taking possession of all the 
riches it contained; while Clovis pursued his ravages into Pro- 
vence, where, tearing up the vines and burning the olive trees, 
he forcibly carried off the peasants, and loaded his soldiers with 
booty. But when he endeavoured to render himself master of 
Avignon, he found the walls too strong for warriors so ignorant 
of the art of besieging: he was obliged, therefore, to enter into 
a compromise with Gondebald, and to consent to retire to the 
banks of the Seing, with all the spoils which his troops had ob- 
tained. 

Gondebald being delivered from the fear of the Franks, im- 
mediately marched to Vienne with a great body of Burgundians, 
who were indignant at the treachery of Godegesil. He gained 
entrance through an aqueduct, and having found his brother, 
who in terror had sought refuge in a church, he put him to death, 
as well as the bishop who had granted him asylum. He de- 
stroyed by horrible tortures all those whom he accused of par- 
ticipating in his brother's treason, and caused his authority 
again to be acknowledged throughout the army of the Burgun- 
dians. 

Clovis, in the mean time, had not been making conquests; pos- 
sibly, this was not his object; but he had been enriching his 
army. At the end of a few years, he led it forth on another ex- 
pedition. Alaric II. reigned over the Visigoths, and between 
him and the Franks there had been some disputes. Clovis pro- 
posed to him to hold a conference in an island on the Loire, 
near Amboise: here he settled all their differences, removed all 
Alaric's anxiety about his own projects, and a lasting peace was 
confirmed between the Visigoths and the Franks by mutual 
oaths. On his return home, he assembled his troops on the 
Champ de Mars, between Soissons and Paris, in the spring of 
the year 507. 

" I cannot bear," he said, " that those Arians (the Visigoths) 
should possess the best part of Gaul: let us go forth against them, 
and when, by God's help, we have overcome them, we will re- 
duce their country under our dominion, and their persons to 
slavery." A longer harangue was not required to excite the 
Franks to warfare. They made the air resound with the clang 
of their arms, and followed their king to the field. 

Clovis had deceived his enemy by a shameful perjury; but, in 
order to gain the blessing of Heaven upon his arms, he caused it 



CHAP. VIII.] CLOVIS. 169 

to be proclaimed that any soldier would be punished with death 
who should carry off so much as a blade of grass from the terri- 
tory of Tours without paying for it, this country being under the 
immediate protection of St. Martin. The church, at that time, did 
not hesitate between the two kinds of merit— liberality toward 
monks, or probity. St. Gregory of Tours assures us that the march 
of Clovis was constantly directed and aided by miracles. The per- 
petual chorus of monks, — the Fsallentium, — who, night and day, 
sang psalms in the church of Tours, announced his victory by a por- 
phecy. A fawn guided his passage across the waters of the Vi- 
enne^ a column of fire led his army on to Poictiers. At the dis- 
tance of ten leagues from this city, Clovis encountered the Visi- 
goths, commanded by Alaric II. He vanquished them in the 
plains of Vougle, (a. d. 507;) their king was killed, and their 
whole army routed. The greater part of the territory of the 
Visigoths, between the Loire and the Pyrennees, was ravaged by 
the Franks, who spent a considerable time in conquering these 
provinces; but during a four years' war, of which we have no 
details, they lost a part of what they had gained, and at the end 
of the reign of Clovis, in 511, his authority was acknowledged 
by little more than the half of Aquitaine. 

The other Frank ic kings could certainly no longer be consi- 
dered as the equals of Clovis; some of them had, indeed, fought 
by his side, but not one had discovered the talents of a great ge- 
neral, or a great politician. All of them had given themselves 
up to that effeminacy which so rapidly corrupts uncivilized man 
in affluence. Nevertheless, Clovis still regarded them as rivals; 
he feared the inconstancy of the people, who might at some fu- 
ture time seek among the other kings a protector against him- 
self; and he dreaded the development of talents dangerous to 
his power in them or their children, or the comparison that might 
be made between their mildness and his own cruelty. He, there- 
fore, came to the resolution of getting rid of them, and began 
with Siegbert, king of the Ripuarians, his companion in arms, 
who reigned at Cologne. In the year 509, he persuaded Chlode- 
ric, the son of this unfortunate king, who had accompanied him 
in his war against the Visigoths, to assassinate his father; pro- 
mising that he would afterwards assist him to reap the fruits of 
his parricide. The crime was committed; but Clovis made no 
attempt to screen the perpetrator, whom he caused to be assassi- 
nated in his turn; and immediately assembled the Ripuarians, 



170 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. Vlllr 

who raised liim upon a shield and proclaimed him their king. 
Shortly after, Clevis laid snares for Cararic, who reigned at Te- 
rouane. Having obtained possession of his person, he compelled 
him and his son to assume holy orders, after which he cut off 
both their heads. He seduced the Leudes of Ragnacar, who 
reigned at Cambray, by presents; and having commanded him 
and his brother to be brought before him in chains, *' Art thou 
not ashamed," said he, ** of disgracing our descent by allowing 
thyself to be thus manacled? thou oughtest to have died honour- 
ably." Then raising his arm, with one blow of his axe he cut 
off his head. " And as for thee," said he to the brother of Rag- 
nacar, hadst thou defended thy brother, thou wouldst not now 
be a captive with him." And immediately, by a mortal blow, he 
laid him prostrate in his turn. He also procured the death of se- 
veral other long-haired kings who reigned over smaller tribes; 
then pretending to repent of his barbarity, he offered his protec- 
tion to all those who had escaped the massacre. He hoped thus 
to discover any of his relations whose lives might have been pre- 
served, that he might rid himself of them also: but they had all 
perished, and his work was accomplished. So says St. Gregory, 
from whom we have borrowed the history of all these horrors; 
and whose sentiments, even better than his narrative, porfray 
the spirit of the age he lived in. "Thus did God everyday 
cause some among his enemies to fall into his hands, and in- 
creased the limits of his kingdom; because he walked with an 
upright heart before the Lord, and did that which was pleasing 
in his sight." (B. ii. c. 40.) 

There can be no doubt that, by the larger part of the clergy of 
Gaul, Clovis was considered a saint. His success was attributed 
to a succession of miracles, which enabled him to lay the founda- 
tion of the French monarchy: one of these, more famous than the* 
rest, has been commemorated ever since, at the consecration of 
the kings of France. It was asserted that a phial, called La 
Sainte j2mpoulle, was brought from heaven by a white dove to 
St. Remi, and contained the holy oil with which he was to anoint 
the king. This story, however, did not gain much credit until 
the ninth century. Nothing could exceed the respect and defe- 
rence which Clovis testified on all occasions for the clergy, in re- 
turn for the zeal with which they espoused his cause. We learn, 
from letters which have been preserved in the collection of the 
councils, that, in every country which was the seat of war, he 



CHAP. VIII.] INSTITUTIONS OF THE FRANKS."" 171 

had taken under his special protection not only the persons and 
property of bishops and priests, but even of their mistresses and 
their children. He had freed the property of the church from 
every kind of tax, and had consulted the ecclesiastical council 
upon the administration of his kingdom. 

We should fall into a great error, if vi^e compared this admi- 
nistration with any of those which exist in modern monarchies. 
Clovis reigned without any ministry, or civil establishment: he 
was not the king of Gaul, but king of the Franks who dwelt in 
Gaul. He was the captain of a sovereign army, both by choice 
and by inheritance 5 for, on the one hand, none but a descendant 
of Merovaeus would have been exalted by the soldiers to this 
high dignity^ and, on the other, they would not have intrusted 
their lives and fortunes to any but the most able and fortunate of 
the royal line. If Clovis had appeared not to justify their choice, 
his head would soon have fallen under the francisque, like those 
of the kings whom he had removed out of his way. This sove- 
reign army, by whose aid he reigned, very much as the dey of 
Algiers reigned among the janissaries, never quitted arms for 
agriculture. They had not taken possession of the estates or the 
persons of the Gauls: for, by spreading themselves over a large 
territory, they would have been lostj they kept together, or, at 
least, their cantonments were always in the neighbourhood of 
Paris or of Soissons, according as the residence of Clovis was in 
one or the other of these cities. The soldiers were generally 
quartered upon the citizens: they lived in the enjoyment of lux- 
ury and brutal pleasures, such as barbarians could relish, until 
the wealth acquired in former expeditions was dissipated, and 
then urged their king to lead them against some new enemy. As 
the nation of Franks had never emigrated in a body, like that of 
'the Burgundians and Visigoths, there were no families to be 
planted, no partitions of land to be made. By degrees only, as- 
the veteran soldier retiring from service asked the grant of some 
uncultivated spot, the king was called upon to distribute land, 
and he had always more to give than he found claimants for^. 
Often, indeed, the soldier helped himself, and, with the aid of 
his francisque, got rid of the proprietor whose dwelling or whose 
land he coveted: aware that, if he chanced to be pursued and 
condemned for this murder, the law required nothing but a mulct 
or widergeld of 100 sols of gold (equal to ^50 sterling) for the 
murder of a Roman landholder. 



Irs FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. VIII. 

The army, thus kept together, was summoned to deliberate 
not only in what was properly called the Champ de Mars, where 
the review took place at the commencement of spring, but on all 
public occasions, whether for peace or for war, to make laws, or 
to pass sentence. The Romans were not admitted to these as- 
semblies ^ they had no part in the sovereignty 5 but they had all 
the resources of court intrigue and flattery; all the places of 
finance or of correspondence, in which their education and lite- 
rary acquirements were indispensable; and all offices in the ec- 
clesiastical hierarchy: in each of these different careers they not 
only preserved, but very often augmented, the fortune they had 
received from their fathers, and their credit increased so much, 
that before long they enjoyed the special favour and confidence 
of the Frankic kings. 

The towns continued to be governed by the Roman law, with 
their curise, or municipalities. To all those places, however, 
which had put themselves under his protection, Clovis sent a 
Frankic ofiicer called Graf, or Orajio, answering pretty nearly 
to the Roman Comes. He superintended the municipality, col- 
lected certain royal dues, and presided over the partial assem- 
blies of the Franks, — the courts where justice was administered 
when any troop of Franks was settled in a town. 

In the rural districts the people remained slaves, as they were 
before the conquest. They laboured for the proprietor of the 
estate upon which they happened to live, whether he were Frank 
or Roman. War had ruined many citizens, and greatly aug- 
mented the number of captives: the common lot of prisoners 
was slavery; and a warlike expedition, crowned with brilliant 
success, was often the cause of transporting from the banks of 
the Rhone to those of the Seine whole droves of unhappy beings 
destined to work for any masters who might become their pur- 
chasers. 

** After having done all these things," continues Gregory of 
Tours, " Clovis died at Paris on the 5th of November, 511. He 
was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles, now called Ste. 
Genevieve; which, in concert with queen Chlotilde, he had 
founded. He had reigned in all thirty years, — five since the 
battle of the Vougle; and had completed the forty-fifth year of 
his age." 



( 17-3 ) 



CHAPTER IX. 



Course of barbaric Invasion from East to West. — The Eastern Empire, by 
mere g-ood Fortune, survives the Western. — Emperors of the East. — 
Persian Kings. — Ostrogoths. — Their King" Dietrich, commonly called 
Theodoric; his Education at the Court of Zeno. — His Conquest of Italy. 
— His Wisdom and Moderation. — Restored Prosperity of Italy under his 
Rule. — Religious Toleration. — Extent of his Territory. — Letters of his 
Secretary Cassidorus. — His War with Clovis. — His Death. — His unworthy 
Successors. — Aggrandizement of the Franks, the most barbarous and the 
most powerful of the German Nations. — Incorporation of other Tribes with 
them. — Conquest of the Thuringians. — Reigns of the four Sons of Clo- 
vis; Thierry, Chlotliaire, Childebert, and Theodebert. — Conquest of Bur- 
gundy. — Gondebald. — Atrocities of the Frankic Kings. — Death of Chlo- 
thaire.— A. D. 493— 561. 

The torrent of barbaric intasiofi had rolled its waves from the 
East to the West: it had received its first impulse in Scythia, 
whence it had followed the shores of the Black Sea, and laid 
waste that enormous lUyrian isthmus, on the coast of which the 
new city of Constantino was built. Almost all the tribes which 
had conquered the West, had previously vented their fury upon 
the empire of the East: Goths of every denomination, Vandals, 
Alans, and Huns: nevertheless, the Eastern empire survived the 
tempest, while that of the West perished in it. The former 
was, certainly, not more warlike than the latter, nor better go- 
verned, nor more peopled, nor more wealthy j it had no glorious 
recollections of the past to recall, and it contained no sparks of 
ancient patriotism which a virtuous administration might have re- 
kindled. The senate of Constantinople, an imperfect copy of 
that of Rome, was always despicable and timid. The character 
of the great was as servile as that of the people. The emperors 
assumed the haughty language of despotism, and, though they 
professed Christianity, they continued to accept worship offered 
to them as divinities. The ambassadors of Theodosius II. en- 
gaged in a violent dispute with the ministers of Attila, at the 
very time when they were about to supplicate for peace at the 
feet of that monarch, declaring that it was impious to compare 
Attila, who was only a man, with their emperor Theodosius, who 
was a god. If we compare the Greeks of the fifth century, who 

23 



174 • FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

maintained their existence, with the Romans, who forfeited 
theirs, we shall find them to have been superior neither in ta- 
lents, nor in virtue, nor in energy, but simply more fortunate. 

After the extinction of the race of the great Theodosius, (a. d. 
450,) the throne of Constantinople was occupied, during a period 
of seventy-seven years, by five emperors, down to the time of 
Justinian: — Marcian, (a. d. 450 — 457;) Leo, till 474; Zeno, till 
491; Anastasius, till 518; and Justin, till 527. These were al- 
most all men advanced in age, equally feeble in mind and in 
body, and raised to the throne by women who governed in their 
names. History has but little to record of them. We have, 
probably, lost some contemporary writers, but the little we know 
of these five reigns leaves us no reason to regret that we do not 
know more. Thrace and the European part of the empire were 
exposed to frequent ravages during these seventy -seven years; 
but the extensive provinces of Asia, Egypt, and the Greek 
islands, suffered only from the vices of the government. These 
vast regions could scarcely be attacked, except from the frontier 
of the Euphrates; and, as the government of the Sassanides, in 
Persia, was characterized by an equal degree of pusillanimity, 
the two empires remained at peace with one another. The kings 
of Persia, Ferouz, (a. d. 457—488;) Balasch, 491; Xobad, 531, 
are only known to us by name: they were engaged in dangerous 
wars with the White Huns, or Euthalites, to the north and east 
of the Caspian Sea, which left them no leisure to turn their arms 
against the Romans. 

But, in the mean time, a new people started from the frontiers 
of the Eastern empire, to fall upon the provinces which had be- 
longed to the empire of the West, and to effect another change 
in their condition. The conquest of Italy by the Ostrogoths 
was connected with the reigns of the emperors Zeno and Anas- 
tasius, and was partly the result of their suggestions. 

Whilst a portion of the nation of the Goths, which had inha- 
bited the western regions, and were called Visigoths, {TVest go- 
then,) had boldly entered the territory of the empire, and had, 
at length, found an abode in part of Gaul and in Spain; the 
Goths of the East, or Ostrogoths, (Osigothen,) still remained be- 
yond the Danube. They had submitted to Attila, but as they 
had neither treasures nor cities to pillage, and nothing to offer to 
their new masters but brave soldiers, they were soon incorpo- 
rated into the Tartar's army, and honoured by the name of his 



CHAP. IX.] OSTROGOTHS. ^THEODORIC. 175 

subjects. Three brothers, who were kings amongst the Ostro- 
goths, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, had followed Attila 
in his expeditions against Thrace, and afterwards against Gaul. 
After the death of the king of the Huns, thej had no difficulty 
in recovering their independence. They occupied, at that time, 
the desolate plains of Pannonia (Austria and Hungary.) The 
impulse they had received from the Huns, the wars in which 
they had been engaged, and the rapid marches they had effected 
across Europe, had induced them to abandon the arts of agricul- 
ture. The habits of indolence and prodigality which they had 
contracted in the rich provinces they had laid waste, unfitted 
them to resume a life of industry; so that, in the rich lands of 
Hungary, where the slightest cultivation is rewarded by the 
most abundant crops, a nation, less numerous than the population 
of any one of the cities they had destroyed there, or which ex- 
ist there at the present time, was constantly in dread of famine. 
Their cupidity was goaded by their privations: the more they 
suffered, the more they oppressed the few wretched inhabitants 
who remained in these vast regions: they destroyed the last 
remnants of the race, and, after having consumed the substance 
of the husbandmen who were their subjects, they relapsed into 
their former misery. 

Theodoric, the son of Theodemir, one of the three brothers, 
had been given to the emperor Zeno as a hostage, and brought 
up at Constantinople. The example of that great empire, which, 
still enjoyed immense wealth, and exercised the most valuable 
of the arts, was not lost upon him. His mind, open to instruc- 
tion, did not fail to profit by whatever was still to be learned 
amongst the Romans in the arts of war and administration; he 
did not choose, however, to submit to Greek pedagogues, but edu- 
cated himself, and would not even be taught to write. About 
the year 475, he succeeded his father, and, as his two uncles 
were already dead, he was then chief of the whole Ostrogoth ic 
nation. He hastened to rescue his countrymen from the mise- 
ries they were suffering in the deserts of Pannonia. He invaded 
the empire of the East, and terrified Zeno into a purchase of his 
friendship. He rendered many important services to the empe- 
ror in the revolts which troubled his reign; but afterwards, being 
provoked by some instance of bad faith, or urged by the mere 
inconstancy and impatience of his soldiers, he again turned his 
arms against the empire, and ravaged Thrace with a cruelty 



176 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

which has left a stain upon his memory. It was said, that, in 
this expedition, the Goths cut off the right hands of the peasants 
they took prisoners, in order to prevent them from holding the 
handle of the plough* 

Theodoric could not live in peace, and Zeno, his adversary, 
was at a loss for a pretext for terminating a war which he was 
unable to carry on. At this juncture, the king of the Ostrogoths 
proposed to the emperor of Byzantium a negotiation by which 
he should be authorized to conquer Italy, and to govern it ac- 
cording to the laws, if not in the dependence, of the empire. 
Zeno was delighted to deliver himself from so formidable an 
enemy at any pricey he therefore abandoned Odoacer to the arms 
of the Ostrogoths, and in the treaty which he finally concluded 
with the king his vassal, expressions were introduced sufficiently 
ambiguous to save the dignity of the empire, without compro^ 
mising the independence of Theodoric. The army of the Os- 
trogoths, and with it the entire nation, left Thrace at the begin- 
ning of the campaign of 489, intending to cross Moesia, Panno^ 
nia, and the Julian Alps, in order to enter Italy, 

Wandering tribes of Bulgarians, Gepidae, and Sarmatians, ocr 
CUpied these regions, which had once been opulent and populous. 
The Ostrogoths were sometimes obliged to maintain a running 
fight with them during a march of 700 miles; but in other parts 
they were joined by numerous adventurers, attracted by the 
fame of Theodoric to serve under his banner. When this for- 
midable army descended the Alps of Friuli, Odoacer showed 
himself to be nowise inferior to his reputation for activity, skill, 
and bravery. He defended Italy better than it had been defend^ 
ed for ages: but, after having lost three pitched battles, he was 
obliged to quit the open country, and to take refuge, with his 
most faithful partisans, in the fortress of Ravenna, where he 
stood a siege of three years. He was, at length, obliged to sur- 
render, on the 5th of March, 493; the conditions he obtained 
were honourable and advantageous, but he soon learned that good 
faith in treaties was a virtue scarcely known amongst barbarians. 
The chiefs themselves rarely hesitated between their interests 
and their engagements, at a time when public opinion was with- 
out force, and public morality without principle. Theodoric, 
who may be looked upon as the most loyal and the most virtuous 
of these barbarian conquerors, caused Odoacer to be assassi- 
nated at the close of a banquet of reconciliatiop. 



CHAP. IX.] THEODORIC. 177 

The king of the Ostrogoths, when he had conquered Italy, 
soon rendered himself master of the territory lying between the 
Danube and the Alps, which formed the outworks of the coun- 
try he governed. He also obtained from the Vandals the resti- 
tution of Sicily, by the terror of his name alone. He then pro- 
ceeded to establish the wisest and most equitable institutions 
which any northern conqueror had ever granted to the conquered 
countries of the south. Instead of oppressing one people by means 
of the other, he strove to hold the balance fairly between them, 
and to preserve, or even to augment, the distinct privileges of 
each. He consolidated the entire structure of the Germanic liber- 
ties of the Goths; their popular judicial proceedings; their laws of 
Scandinavian origin; their institutions, at once civil and milita- 
ry, which assembled the citizens of the sanie districts, to delibe- 
rate or to judge in time of peace, and to take the field together 
in time of war. He confided the defence of the state to them 
exclusively, and, towards the close of his life, he went so far ag 
to prohibit the Romans from wearing arms, (which they showed 
little eagerness to use,) and to allow them only to the barbarians. 
At the same time, he attempted to introduce the practice of agri- 
culture among the Ostrogoths, by giving them lands, which they 
held on the ancient German tenure of military service. There 
were deserted estates in Italy, at that time, sulRcient to have 
maintained thirty or forty thousand new families^ and it is not to 
be doubted that Theodoric had brought as many with him: but 
these warriors had so far lost the habit of labour, that they could 
not submit to the task of bringing waste lands into cultivation: 
they were, therefore, allowed to choose out of the estates of the 
Romans, with the restriction, that no Roman citizen was to lose 
more than the third of his inheritance. It is also possible (for 
the expressions of Procopius on this head are somewhat ambi-r 
guous) that he imposed on the Roman husbandman the obligation 
of handing over to his barbarian master one-third of his crop; in 
which case we must ascribe to Theodoric the merit of having 
restored that system of partiary or metayer husbandry to which 
Italy owes the prosperity of its agricultural population. As le- 
gislator, he made great efforts to unite in the Ostrogoth the do^ 
mestic habits of the cultivator, with the exercises and discipline 
of the soldier. His wish was to instruct his subjects in the arts, 
but not in the science or literature of the Romans, " for," said 
he, " he who has trembled at the rod of a tutor, will always 
tremble at the sight of a sword." 



178 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. IX. 

Theodoric indulged his Roman subjects in what they called their 
liberties; that is to say, the names of the republic, the senate, the 
consuls, and the magistracy; in tlieir laws, language, and dress. 
He was sufficiently acquainted with the constitution of the em- 
pire, to perceive the great advantages he might derive from this 
state of things. The Romans would pay taxes, whilst the Goths 
would remain free from contributions; and he could not fail to 
discern the security he might gain from their settled obedience, 
and their great superiority over the Goths in the science of ad- 
ministration, in foreign correspondence, and in diplomacy. 
With the aid of Roman industry, fostered by the protection of 
just laws, and by the activity of a great mind, he worked some 
ancient gold and iron mines in Pannonia and Istria; he encou- 
raged improvements in agriculture; he commenced the draining 
of the Pontine Marshes; restored the spirit of commerce and 
manufactures, and re-established the imperial posts, which were 
then exclusively destined to the convenience of the government, 
and of such as could obtain gratuitous orders for horses. In the 
year 500, during a visit he made to the city of Rome, where he 
received the compliments of the senate and the people, he as- 
signed an annual revenue for the preservation of the Roman mo- 
numents from the depredations of builders, who already looked 
upon them as quarries which were to furnish materials for new 
edifices. He even re-established, on a less lavish, but still on an 
expensive scale, the distributions of food to the Roman people, 
and those public sports which were not less dear to them than 
J>read. He did not, however, take up his residence in the an- 
cient capital, but divided his time between Ravenna, the most 
important fortress of his kingdom, his great arsenal and store- 
house, and Verona, the city of his choice, and that from which 
he was best enabled to provide for the defence of Italy. Thence 
it is, that, in the Niebelungen Lied, the most ancient German 
poem, he is designated as Dietrich von Berne, which must be 
translated Theodoric of Verona, since Bern was not then in ex- 
istence. Although he had been brought up in the Arian faith, 
Theodoric granted perfect toleration to the catholics, and even 
acceded to the wishes of their clergy, in forbidding any but the 
catholic religion amongst his conquered subjects. He distributed 
rewards and benefices to the clergy with such judgment and ad- 
dress, that they remained obedient and faithful to him till nearly 
the close of his life. He had intended to restore the glory of the 



CHAP. IX.] THEODORIC. 179 

Roman senate, and to attach it to his monarchy: his success was 
complete at the beginning of his reign, but the men whom he 
imagined he had secured, eluded him towards the end of it. 
The bishops and senators, deceived by the attentions he paid 
them, thought themselves more important and more formidable 
than they really were. The senators were still distinguished by 
their immense wealth; they dwelt upon the antiquity of their 
race, with a degree of pride which seemed to increase as the 
chances of raising its dignity by illustrious actions diminished. 
They still believed themselves to be ancient Romans, not only 
the descendants, but the equals, of the masters of the world: 
they dreamed of liberty without equality, public strength or cou- 
rage; and they entered into obscure conspiracies, to restore, not 
the republic, but the empire. Theodoric, who had become irri- 
table by prosperity and suspicious by age, punished these men, 
whom he accused of treacherous plans and intentions, more, 
perhaps, on suspicion, than on any proof of real guilt. The end 
of his reign was sullied by the condemnation of Boethius and 
Symmachus, both of whom were senators, men of consular dig- 
nity, and eminently fitted to do honour to the last age of Rome. 
Boethius languished for a long time in his prison at Pavia: before 
he perished by a cruel death, he composed his work, ** De €on- 
solatione Philosophiae," which is still read with pleasure. It i& 
said that Theodoric, exasperated by the persecution of the Arians 
at Constantinople, was about to set on foot a persecution of the 
catholics in Italy, when he died, on the 30th of August, 526. 

During a reign of thirty-three years Theodoric carried on se-- 
veral successful wars, by means of his generals: he repelled the 
attacks of the Greeks, of various barbaric tribes from the 
Danube, of the Burgundians, and of the Franks. He was, how- 
ever, less solicitous for the extension of his monarchy by con-^ 
quest, than for its internal prosperity. The population of his' 
kingdom rapidly increased, thanks to the long peace it enjoyed,, 
to the wise laws which he had promulgated, and to the immense" 
resources of a country which had been thus regenerated by the 
barbarians, and in which every kind of labour ensured an ample 
recompense. At the close of his reign the nation of the Ostro-- 
goths was computed to possess 200,000 men capable of bearing 
arms, which supposes a total population of nearly 1,000,000; we 
must not, however, forget that it had been recruited by the sol- 
diers and adventurers of all the barbarous nations who flocked to^ 



180 FALL PP THE HOMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

share the riches and the glory with which Theodoric loaded it. 
It then occupied not only Sicily and Italy, but the provinces of 
Rhsetia and Noricum to the Danube, Istria on the other side of 
the Adriatic, and the south of Gaul to the Rhone. We have no 
positive information as to the Roman population of these territo- 
ries at the same time, but there is reason to believe that it was 
also considerably increased. 

The negotiations of Theodoric extended throughout Germany, 
and even to Sweden, whence his countrymen originally came, 
and whence he constantly received fresh emigrants. The volu- 
minous collection of the letters of his secretary Cassiodorus has 
been preserved j and although the truth often lies hid under the 
pompous style, cumbrous metaphors, or pedantic erudition of that 
rhetorician, these twelve books furnish us with many precious 
documents relating to the internal administration of the country, 
the manners of the age, and the diplomatic relations of the new 
states: it is worthy of note that the Latin language was em- 
ployed in these last communications by nations who did not un- 
derstand it themselves. We find letters addressed by Cassio- 
dorus in the name of Theodoric to the kings of the Warnes, of 
the Heruli, and of the Thuringians, who were all completely 
barbarous, and who lived beyond the Danube, begging them to in- 
terest themselves, as well as the king of the Burgundians, in the 
defence of his son-in-law Alaric II. against Clovis. These kings 
had been compelled to acknowledge the advantages of letters, 
and of the means of communication which they afforded to men: 
separated by enormous distances, although united by the same 
interests; but, as their language had no alphabet, and neither 
they nor any one else could write it, they took Roman slaves as 
secretaries, and frequently maintained a correspondence in a 
language which was equally unknown to both parties. 

Theodoric, who had obliged the Burgundians to cede a great 
portion of Provence and the town of Aries, in which he had 
established a prefect of Gaul in imitation of the prefecture under 
the empire, had endeavoured to protect his son-in-law Alaric II., 
king of the Visigoths in Spain and Aquitaine, whose territories 
adjoined his own at the mouth of the Rhone. Deceived as much 
as his young ally, by the oaths of Clovis, he was unable to pre- 
vent the battle of Vougle and the ruin of the Visigoths in Aqui- 
taine, but he lost no time in sending them assistance. A natu- 
ral sou of Alaric, who was of age to bear arms, had been placed 



CHAP. IX.] WEST AND EAST GOTHIC KINGS, 181 

upon the throne during the infancy of Amalaric, his legitimate 
son by the daughter of Theodoric^ however valid this motive 
might appear to the nation, it did not satisfy the king of the Os- 
trogoths, who immediately caused his grandson to be crowned, 
and assumed the government of Spain and of the south of France 
as his guardian. Amalaric, in the mean while, established his 
residence at Narbonnej the lustre of his court, and of the offi- 
cers who attended him, served to remind the Visigoths that they 
were still an independent nation^ while the continued advantages 
with which they carried on a border war against the Franks, at- 
tached them to the powerful protector who maintained the glory 
of their monarchy. 

If Theodoric had had a son to whom he might have transmit- 
ted the dominion over so large a portion of Europe, the Goths 
would probably have had the honour of restoring the empire of 
the West; but fortune, who had conferred more true greatness 
on this prince than on any other barbaric monarch, refused him 
a male heir, and had granted him only two daughters. He died 
on the 30th of August, 5^6, and his reign passed like a brilliant 
meteor, which disappears without exercising any permanent in- 
fluence on the seasons. The two nations of the Visigoths and 
Ostrogoths, which he had united, were again divided at his death. 
Amalaric, who was then twenty -five or twenty-six years old, re- 
mained at Narbonne, whence he governed Spain, and that part 
of Gaul which lies between the Rhone, the Loth, and the Pyren- 
nees. Athalaric, the grandson of Theodoric, then only four or 
five years old, remained at Ravenna under the guardianship of 
his mother Amalasonta, at the head of the Ostrogoths in Italy 
and Provence. 

As corruption advances with more rapid strides among barba- 
rians than among civilized nations, so also does their ruin. Their 
virtues are owing to position rather than to principle: they are 
sober, valiant, and active, because they are poor and hardy from 
their infancy. Physical pleasure is all that wealth can give them; 
they are unable to share the intellectual enjoyments of civilized 
men, so that, to them, opulence is the source of every vice. The 
plan of this work does not compel us to enter jnto these infamous 
details; suffice it to say, that from the* death of the great Theo- 
doric, to the reign of Athanagild, who transferred the seat of 
monarchy to Toledo, (a. d. 526—554,) four kings successively 
occupied the throne: Amalaric reigned from 526 to 531; Then- 

24 



182 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. IX. 

dis died in 548; Thendisdi in 549, and Agila in 554. Each was 
assassinated by the hand of his successor. In Italy seven kings 
of the Ostrogoths succeeded Theodoric, till the destruction of 
that monarchy by Belisarius in 554: Athalaric reigned from 5^6 
to 534, Theodatus to 536, Vitiges to 540, Hildebald 541, Evaria 
541, Totila 55^, and Teja 554. The fate of these monarchs was 
scarcely less tragical than that of their contemporaries in Gaul: 
but we shall have occasion to recur to them, in speaking of the 
conquests of Justinian, in a subsequent chapter. We shall, at 
the same time, witness the fall of the Vandals in Africa: we are 
about to record that of the Burgundians in Gaul. No ray of 
light enables us as yet to discern the history of the internal re- 
volutions of Great Britain or of Germany, so that, after the 
death of Theodoric, all tli« interest of the West centres in the 
history of the Franks. 

The sudden rise of the monarchy of the Franks is the more 
remarkable, as, from the .death of Clovis, that nation was dis- 
tinguished neither by the virtues or talents of its chiefs, nor by 
its own merits. At the time of the conquest of Gaul, the Franks 
were the most barbarous of the barbarians, and they long re- 
mained so: they manifested an extreme contempt for the people 
they had subdued, and treated them with excessive rigour. The 
Visigoths had adopted a pretty copious selection from the code of 
Theodosius (which was then the law of the empire) as the larw 
of their monarchy: the Ostrogoths had promulgated laws of their 
own, which were not entirely dissimilar from those of the Roman 
republic, and which attested the importance they attached to le- 
gal science, and to the administration of justice. The Burgun- 
dians, more rude than the Goths, had retained their national 
Jaws, which were, certainly, less polished than the preceding 
cedes, but equitable in spirit, and equally just to the conquerors 
and the conquered. The Franks published their laws, which 
were the most barbarous of all. The penal code of the Germanic 
nations reduced itself to a scale of fines: every offence might be 
atoned for by a pecuniary compensation: wehrgeld was the mo- 
ney of defence, wiedergeld the money of compensation. But 
the Franks, both Salian and Ripuan, were the only people who 
valued the blood of a Roman, at half, or even less than half, the 
value of the blood of a barbarian. Murder, and every other 
crime, was punished in the same proportion. This public insuft, 
offered by the legislature to the conquered people, was of a pieee 



CHAP. IX.] THE FRANKS. 183 

with the rest of their conduct. Thej despised the learning of 
the Latins, as well as their language, their arts, and their sci- 
ences: as governors, the Franks were violent, brutal, and piti- 
less: their respect for the priests alone contributed to render their 
yoke supportable. Their high veneration for the church, and 
their rigorous orthodoxy, which was the more easily preserved, 
as they were entirely ignorant of the disputes and controversies 
which had arisen on matters of faith, induced the clergy to look 
upon them as their firmest allies. They were ever ready to de- 
test, to combat, and to pillage the Arians, without listening to 
their arguments. The bishops, in their turn, were not very strict 
in enforcing the moral obligations of religion: they shut their 
eyes upon violence, murder, and licentiousness; they even seem 
to have publicly authorized polygamy, and they preached the di- 
vine right of kings, and the duty of passive obedience. The 
Franks were, however, brave, numerous, — for their population 
had increased rapidly in Gaul,- — well armed, tolerably well 
versed in the ancient Roman discipline, from their long service 
in the imperial armies, and almost always victorious in battle. 
The ties that united them were so lax, their obedience to the 
king and to the law so voluntary, their freedom from pecuniary 
and social obligations so complete, that no barbarian thought he 
forfeited any of his national privileges by entering into their 
community. On the other hand, the Franks, who, at their first 
establishment on the other side of the Rhine, had been composed 
of a confederation of several small nations, were familiar with 
the idea of admitting new confederates: all they asked of their 
associates was to march under the same standard in time of war: 
they did not interfere with their internal constitution; they ap- 
pointed no governor; they did not dismiss their dukes or heredi- 
tary kings, and, without claiming from them forced subsidies of 
men or of money, they admitted them to participation in their 
glory and their power. In this manner the whole of Germany, 
without having been conquered, became engaged in the Frankic 
confederation in tlie course of that half century which comprised 
the reigns of the four sons of Clovis. (a. d. 511 — 561.) 

The kingdom of Clovis, which had been founded by soldiers 
of fortune in some of the towns of Belgium, was bounded by 
the Rhine. His tribe consisted of Salians, and, perhaps, of Si- 
cambrians, also, though it is not at all certain, that other Salians, 
independent of Clovis, did not remain in their former settle- 



184 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

merits on the right bank of the Rhine. The Chauci, the Che- 
rusci, and the Chamavi, are not mentioned in the history of his 
reign, any more than the other ancient Franks who belonged to 
the primitive confederation. They had all retained their inde- 
pendence in a part of Germany which is still called Frankenland 
(Franconia,) after them; but, in the following half century, 
they gladly entered into a new confederation, which, without 
abridging their rights, promised to ensure them many new ad- 
vantages. Beyond the Franks of the Rhine, and of Franconia, 
dwelt the Frisons on the shores of the ocean, and the Saxons at 
the mouth of the Elbe: both these nations began to call them- 
selves Franks, or, at least, to march with the Frankic armies, at 
the beginning of the sixth century. The Alemanni, or Swa- 
bians, from the sources of the Rhine, and the Bavarians, on the 
banks of the Danube, contracted the same pacific engagements, 
without, in any way, changing their respective institutions; ex- 
cept that their sovereigns probably abandoned the title of king 
to Clovis, and assumed that of Duke. The Thuringians alone 
were subdued by force of arms. They had laid the foundation 
of a powerful monarchy from the banks of the Elbe and the 
Unstrut to those of the Neckar: they had allied themselves with 
the Varnes and the Heruli; and they had a long rival ship of glo- 
ry to decide, as well as a long list of grievances to redress, with 
the Franks. The Thuringian w^ar is believed to have occurred 
in the years 528 and 530. The sons of Clovis took advantage 
of the dissensions of his chiefs, and of those royal fratricides 
which stain the annals of all the monarchies of that age, to at- 
tack this nation. Three brothers governed the Thuringians — 
Baderic, Hermanfrid, and Berthar; they were recent converts 
to Christianity, and Hermanfrid had married a niece of the great 
Theodoric, king of Italy. This princess, who was accustomed 
to the Gothic order of succession, according to primogeniture, 
upbraided her husband for consenting to occupy a divided throne, 
Hermanfrid came one day into the banquet hall, where he found 
the table partly uncovered: when he asked his wife the cause, 
she said, "You complain of having only half a table, and you 
submit quietly to having only half a kingdom." Hermanfrid 
felt this reproach: to satisfy his wife, he surprised and assassi- 
nated his brother Berthar: he afterwards concerted the death of 
Baderic with Thierry, one of the sons of Clovis; but, as he re- 
fused to pay this prince the recompense he had promised, war 



CHAP. IX.] FRANKIC KINGS. 185 

was declared, in which Hermanfrid perished with his whole fa- 
mily^ not, however, in battle, but by treachery, in a conference 
with his enemy. 

We have advanced in this history without mentioning the 
names of the new kings of the Franksj it is, indeed, repulsive 
to dwell upon the lives of princes whose annals are one tissue of 
perfidy and of crime. Clovis was succeeded by his four sons — 
Thierry, Chlodomir, Childebert, and Chlothaire; the eldest of 
whom was twenty-five, tlie youngest thirteen or fourteen years 
old. All four were distinguished by th«ir regal length of hair, 
and all bore the title of king, but they lived in four distinct, 
though not very distant towns, — Paris, Orleans, Soissons, and 
Metz, — in order to enjoy the pleasures of the throne without re- 
straint, and to be more secure from the poison or the dagger each 
dreaded from the other. The monarchy, however, was not di- 
vided, though the royalty wasj the Franks still formed one na- 
tion. In time of peace, the kings took so little part in the go- 
vernment, that the division of the royal powder was unperceived 
by their subjects: in war, each had his own leudes or warriors, 
immediately depending upon his personal favour; while, in their 
more important expeditions, the Franks followed the king in 
whom they had the greatest confidence. The provinces were 
divided amongst the brothers, but, in so strange a manner, that 
it is evident the convenience of government was not the object 
they had in view. The division applied more to the tribute of 
the Roman towns, and to the productions of the soil, than to the 
territory itself; each prince chose to have his share in the vines 
and olives of the souths as well as in the forest or pasture lands 
of the north; and their possessions were so intermingled through- 
out Gaul, that it was impossible to travel for ten leagues without 
passing ^ frontier. 

The lives of the four brothers were not of equal duration, 
Thierry, the eldest, who was not a son of Chlotilde, but of a 
concubine^ or pagan mistress of Clovis, died in 534; he was suc- 
ceeded by his son Theodebert, who died in 54r, and was fol- 
lowed by Theodebald, his son, who died in 553 without issue. 
Chlodomir, the second of the Frankic kings, was slain in the 
Burgundian war in 526. Childebert, the third, died in 558; and 
Chlothaire, who survived his brothers, inherited all their posses- 
sions, and reigned over the Franks till 561. It would be diffi- 
,cult and useless to fix this list of deaths in the memory: the go- 



186 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. IX. 

vernment of the four sons of Clovis properly forms but one 
reign, which lasted from 511 to 561. These four princes laid 
snares for each other, but they never broke out into open hostili- 
ty. We shall shortly see that they were far from sparing of the 
bloo4 of their kindred, but they probably thought that the Franks 
would refuse to make war upon each other. They had but few 
opportunities of displaying their military talents: they, however, 
made some warlike expeditions^ Thierry and Chlothaire in Thu- 
ringia, Childebert in Narbonnensian Gaul, and Theodebert in 
Italy: they thus enriched their soldiers with booty, and kept up 
the reputation of the valour of their nation. 

The bravery of the Franks was more frequently called into ac- 
tion in numerous voluntary expeditions, undertaken by soldiers 
of fortune under captains of their own choice, in order to share 
the spoils of Italy, which was at that time the theatre of war be- 
tween Belisarius, the general of Justinian, and the Ostrogoths. 
These partial expeditions would have had no consequence more 
important than the success, or the untimely death, of individual 
warriors, had not the Ostrogoths surrendered the occupation of 
Provence, by which means that important part of Gaul was add- 
ed to the empire of the Franks. A still more brilliant acquisition 
was that of Burgundy, which was the consequence of a national 
war, anxl of a family quarrel. 

Gondebald, king of the Burgundians, who had massacred his 
three brothers, continued to reign alone over that nation from 
the year 500 to 516. St. Avitus, archbishop of Vienne, his sub- 
ject, exhorted him, in a letter which is still extant, to calm his 
remorse for this fratricide; he conjured him " to weep no longer 
with such ineffable piety the death of his brothers, since it was 
ihe good fortune of the kingdom which diminished the number 
of persons invested with royal authority, and preserved to the 
world such only as were necessary to rule it.''* Gondebald, 
from the tim« jof the commission of this crime, governed with 
great wisdom and justice: he protected his Roman subjects, and 
ensured the future observance of their rights. When he died, 
in 516, his son Sigismund succeeded him, after having embraced 
the orthodox faith, and induced the majority of his subjects to 
Join in his conversion. 

Sigismund was canonized by the Roman church, and is to this 
day revered as a saint. He was the founder of the convent of 
St. Ma/Urice in the Valais, which he endowed with immense re- 



CHAP. IX.] DESCENDANTS OF CLOVIS. 187 

venues: we know nothing of what occurred during his reign of 
eight years, except this monastic institutio^n, and the precipitation 
with which he caused his brother Siegeric to be strangled in his 
sleep, on false suspicions. He lived in peace, fully occupied 
with what were then called good works, such as acts of penitence, 
and munificent almsgivings ta the monks. St. Chlotilde, the 
widow of Clovis, who had also retired from the world to devote 
herself exclusively to the exercises of religion at the tomb of St. 
Martin at Tours, came to Paris in the year 523, to meet her 
three sons; and, according to the holy bishop, Gregory of Tours, 
she addressed them to the following effect: — ** I exhort you, my 
dear children, to live so that I may never repent the tenderness 
with which I have brought you up; to resent with indignation 
the injury which I received thirty-three years ago, and to 
avenge, with unflinching constancy, the death of my parents." 
The three sons swore to perform the injunctions of their mother: 
they attacked the Burgundians, defeated them in battle, secured 
the person of St. Sigismund, who had already assumed the mo- 
nastic garb, and was retiring to the convent of St. Maurice: af- 
ter keeping him some time prisoner, Chlodomir caused him to be 
thrown into a well near Orleans, with his wife and his two chil- 
dren. A brother of Sigismund, called Godemar, rallied the fugitive 
Burgundians, put himself at their head, and repelled the Franks. 
Chlodomir, who renewed the attack in 524, was killed at the bat- 
tle of Veserruce. The Franks offered to treat with the Burgun- 
dians, and Godemir was allowed to reign in peace for eight years; 
but in 532 he was again assailed, taken prisoner, and treated 
as captive kings were treated at that time: the whole of Burgun- 
dy was subdued, and thenceforth the Burgundians marched un- 
der the standard of the Franks, though they retained their own 
laws and magistracy. 

The revenge of St. Chlotilde was at length accomplished an 
the children and grandchildren of her enemies; but her satisfac- 
tion was imbittered. Chlodamir was killed; and his brother, 
Chlothaire, though be had already two wives, married his bro- 
ther's widow, named Gondioca, and sent his three infant children 
to be brought up by St. Chlotilde. He feared, however, lest 
these sons of Chlodomir should, at some future time, assert their 
claim to their father's inheritance; and, accordingly, summoned 
his brother Childebert to Paris, to. consult with him on their com- 



188 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

mon interests. They desired their mother to send the three chil- 
dren to them, in order that they might be shown to the people, 
and proclaimed kings. Chlotilde accordingly sent them with 
a numerous train of officers, and of young pages who were brought 
up with them. Arcadius, a senator of Auvergne, and a confi- 
dential agent of Childebert, shortly afterwards returned to her 
with a pair of scissors and a drawn sword, calling upon her to 
decide the fate of her grandchildren: in a paroxysm of indignation 
and despair, Chlotilde exclaimed, that " she had rather they 
should perish, than be shorn and buried alive in a cloister." 
This answer was construed into assent by her two sons: Chlothaire 
seized the eldest of the princes, then about ten years old, by the 
arm, threw him down, and plunged a dagger into his side: the 
younger child then fell at the feet of Childebert and implored mer- 
cy, Childebert, touched by his supplications, with tears in his eyes 
entreated his brother to stay his handj but Chlothaire exclaimed 
furiously, *' Thou hast urged me on, and now thou desertest me; 
give up the boy, or perish in his stead:" on which Childebert 
flung the supplicant down, and Chlothaire slew him on the ground . 
All the pages and attendants were massacred at the same time, 
and Childebert divided the inheritance of Chlodomir with his sur- 
viving brother. Chlodoald, the youngest of these unhappy chil- 
dren, escaped the pursuit of his uncles: for a long time he re- 
mained in concealment; when he was grown up he cut off his hair 
with his own hands, and assumed the monkish garb: returning to 
France after the death of Chlothaire, he built the monastery of 
St. Cloud, which bears his name. 

After recording the crimes of the early kings of the Franks, 
we long to hear that speedy vengeance overtook them; but this 
was too rarely the case. Nations are quickly chastised for their 
vices and their crimes; for them, morality is indentical with good 
policy; but individuals, of whose existence we see but the begin- 
ning, await a different retribution. The powerful frequently 
find means to hush the upbraidings of conscience, of public opi- 
nion, and of posterity. Childebert and Chlothaire had risen above 
the scruples of remorse; they were assisted in recovering their 
tranquillity of mind by the assurances of the monks, whom they 
loaded with wealth. *' When," says Chlothaire in the diploma 
which was given to the convent of Riom in 516, '' we listen with 
a devout soul to the supplications of our priests, as to what regards 



CHAP. IX.] DESCENDANTS OF CLOVIS. 185 

the advantage of the churches, we are certain that Jesus Christ 
will remunerate us for all the good we do them."* Such was 
the Christianity which was taught to Chlothaire, and such the 
confidence in which he was educated, whilst his eyes were closed 
to the atrocity of the murders we have seen, and are yet to see^ 
and whilst he was allowed to marry, at the same time, Rhade- 
gunde, (he daughter of the king of the Thuringians whom he had 
slain, Chemsene, the mother of his son Chramne, Gondioca, the 
widow of his brother Chlodomir, Wuttrade, the widow of his ne- 
phew Theodewald, Ingunde, and Aregunde. It should be men- 
tioned that the bisiiops objected to his marriage with Wuttrade, 
and that he was obliged at the end of a few months to give her 
up to Gariwald duke of Bavaria; but as to the other marriages, 
the bishop of Tours relates them in the language of the Old Tes- 
tament: — 

" Chlothaire had already espoused Ingunde," says St. Gre- 
gory, " and he loved her alone, when she proffered a request to 
him, and said, ' My lord hath done with his servant that which 
hath seemed good to him, and hath called her to his bed, but 
now that the kindness of my lord and king be complete, let him 
listen to the prayer of his handmaiden. Choose, I pray thee, for 
Aregunde my sister, his servant, a man wise and rich, so that I 
be not humbled by her alliance, but exalted on the contrary, and 
that I may serve my lord with greater faithfulness.' Chlothaire 
heard what she said, and as he was extremely sensual, he burned 
with love for Aregunde. He speedily repaired to the country- 
house where she dwelt, and took her to wife; after this life re- 
turned to Ingunde and said, 'I have provided for that which 
thou hast sought of me; thou hast asked a husband for thy sister 
both rich and wise, and I have found no one better than myself; 
know then that I have married her, and that I would not have 
thee be displeased thereat.' Then Ingunde answered; *Let my 
lord do that which is good in his sight, so that his handmaid find 
favour in the eyes of her king.' " 

The end of Chlothaire's career was worthy of its commence- 
ment: after having shared the throne with his brothers for forty- 
seven years, he survived the last of them three years. Childe- 
bert died at Paris in 558, leaving no son; Chlothaire immediate- 
ly drove his wife and tw^o daughters from the country, and sought 

* Diplom. torn. iv. p. 616. 
25 



190 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. IX. 

to wreak his revenge on his own son Chramne, who had attached 
himself to Childebert bj choice. Chramne took refuge with the 
Britons in Armorica, a people who had refused to submit to the 
Franks, and who readily took up arms in defence of the young 
prince^ the Britons were, however, defeated, and Chramne again 
took to flight. '* He had vessels ready upon the sea," continues 
Gregory of Tours, ** but as he tarried to place his wife and his 
daughters in safety, the soldiers of his father came up with him, 
and cast him into chains. When this was told to king Chlo- 
thaire, he ordered his son to be burnt in fire, together with his 
wife and daughters: thereupon they were shut up in the hovel of 
a poor manj Chramne was stretched out and bound upon a 
bench, with a cloth taken from an altar (orarium,) and the house 
was set on fire, so that he perished in it with his wife and 
daughters. 

" Now when the king Chlothaire had reached the fiftieth year 
of his reign, he went to the gates of the shrine of St. Martin 
with very rich presents; and when he came to Tours, at the tomb 
of that bishop, he confessed all the actions in which he had any 
negligence to reproach himself with; he lifted up his voice and 
groaned exceedingly, begging the holy confessor to obtain the 
mercy of the Lord, and to efface by his intercession whatever 
might have been sinful in his conduct. After his return, he was 
hunting one day in the forest of Cuise, when he was attacked by 
a fever, so that he returned to his palace at Compiegne; being 
cruelly tormented by the fever, he cried, * What are we to think 
of this king of heaven, who kills the kings of earth in this wise.^' 
But he expired in this suffering. His four sons carried his body- 
in great pomp to Soissons, and i^iterred it in the church of St. 
Medard: he died on the day after the anniversary of that on 
which his son Chramne had been pirt to death. " 



t 191 ) 



CHAPTER X. 

The Reig-n of Justinian, illustrated by two Historians, Procopius and Aga 
thias, and distinguished for great Men. — Character of Justinian. — His In- 
tolerance.— Abolition of the Schools of Athens; of the Consulate and 
the Senate of Rome. — Contrast between the Brilliancy and the Calamity 
of this Period. — Wars with the Bulgarians, Slavonians, and Persians. — 
Peace with Chosroes 11. — Kingdom of the Vandals in Africa, from the 
Death of Genseric. — African War. — Belisarius. — Taking of Carthage. — 
Conquest of Africa. — Recall of Belisarius. — The Ostrogoths in Italy, 
from the Death of Theodoric. — Amalasonta. — Expedition of Belisarius 
against the Ostrogoths. — Vitiges. — Rome taken and retaken. — Conduct 
of Justinian to Belisarius. — Incursions of the Franks. — Recall of Belisa- 
rius from Italy. — Ruinous Consequences. — Successes of the Ostrogoths 
under Totila. — Expedition of Belisarius against him. — Defeat of the 
Goths by Narses. — Last Victory of Belisarius. — Ingratitude of the Empe- 
or. — ^Death of both. — Justinian as Lawgiver.— a. d. 527 — 565. 

In the midst of the darkness through which we have groped 
our way; after having seen the lights of history die out in the 
East and in the West; after having lost sight of all the historians 
ot Rome, and of the school of rhetoricians and philosophers which 
had been formed during the reigns of Constantine and of Julian, 
we are all at once surrounded by a flood of historic light, spread- 
ing from the East to the West, and showing how the face of 
things was changed, when the prince of legislators published 
that digest of laws which is still used in many of the tribunals 
of modern Europe. The reign of Justinian, from 527 to 565, is 
one of the most brilliant periods of the history of the lower em- 
pire. It has been celebrated by two Greek writers, Procopius 
and Agathias, the former of whom, especially, is worthy to tread 
in the footsteps of the fathers of Grecian history, whom he took 
for his models. One of the greatest men who ever adorned the 
annals of the world, — Belisarius, whose virtues and whose ta- 
lents were alike strangers at the court of Byzantium, and inex- 
plicable in the midst of the universal turpitude and crime, — 
wrenched from the barbarians both Africa, Sicily, and Italy; pro- 
vinces in which the foundations of powerful monarchies had been 
laid, and which seemed to defy the contemptible attacks of the 
Greeks. A code of laws, acknowledged throughout western 
Europe, in countries which had never belonged to the empire, or 



192 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. "^4 

which had long since thrown off its yoke, though rejected centu- 
ries ago by the nations for which it was especially designed, has 
survived that empire, and has obtained, in our days, the appella- 
tion of '' written reason." Monuments of art, worthy of admi- 
ration, began to rise in Constantinople and in the provinces, after 
the lapse of two centuries, during which, construction had been 
utterly at a stand, and nations seemed solely intent upon de- 
stroying what existed The reign of Justinian, from its length, 
its glory, and its disasters, may, on more than one account, be 
compared to the reign of Louis XIV., which exceeded it in 
length, and equalled it in glory and in disaster. The great empe- 
ror, like " the great king," was handsome in his person, graceful 
and dignified in his manners, and impressed all who approached 
him with a sense of that majesty to which both of them so ardent- 
ly aspired. Justinian displayed the same sagacity as Louis in 
choosing his ministers, and in employing them in the career most 
fitted to their talents. Belisarius, Narses, and many others, 
whose names, though less celebrated, are not less worthy of re- 
nown, gained victories for him which conferred upon the mo- 
narch the glory of a conqueror. John of Cappadocia, who was 
employed to regulate the finances, brought them into perfect or- 
der, at the same time that he carried to the highest perfection the 
art of draining the purse of the subject. Tribonian, to whom he 
confided the task of legislation, brought to his service his prodi- 
gious erudition, his sagacious understanding, and his knowledge 
of jurisprudence, to which was united all the servility of a cour- 
tier, whose object it was to sanction despotism by law. The 
magnificence of the edifices built by Justinian, which are more 
remarkable for their splendour than for the purity of their style, 
exhausted his treasury^ and, though these monuments still illus- 
trate his memory, the erection of them was more disastrous to 
his people than war itself. The fortresses with which he co- 
vered his frontiers, and which he built on every side, at an im- 
mense expense, could not check the invasions of his enemies in 
his old age. Justinian w^as the protector of commerce. For the 
first time in the history of antiquity, we find a government pay- 
ing some attention to the science of economy^ and though it is 
extremely doubtful whether the real wealth and happiness of his 
subjects were increased by the encouragement he gave to manu- 
fectures, it must be acknowledged that we owe to him the intro- 
duction of the silkworm, the cultivation of the mulberry tree, 



CHAP. X.] JUSTINIAN. 19S 

and the fabric of silk, imported from China; and that by his ne- 
gotiations in Abyssinia and in Sogdiana, he attempted to open a 
n«w route for the commerce of India, and to render his subjects 
independent of Persia. Justinian, believing that kings are more 
enlightened in matters of faith than the common run of men, de- 
termined on establishing his creed throughout the empire. He 
persecuted all who differed from him, and thus deprived himself 
of the assistance of many millions of citizens, who took refuge 
with his enemies, and introduced the arts of Greece amongst 
them. His reign may be signalized as the fatal epoch at which 
several of the noblest institutions of antiquity were abolished. 
He shut the schools of Athens, (a. d. 529,) in which an uninter- 
rupted succession of philosophers, supported by a public stipend, 
Imd taught the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, 
ever since the time of the Antonines. They were, it is true, 
still attached to paganism, and even to the arts of magic. In 
541, he abolished the titular consulate of Rome, which was be- 
come an office of ruinous expense, from the magnifi.cence of the 
games which those who held it thought themselves obliged to 
give to the people. These pageants frequently cost each candi- 
date a sum of 80,000/. sterling. In a few years afterwards, 
(about 552,) the senate of Rome also ceased to exist. The an- 
cient capital of the world was taken and retaken five times 
during the reign of Justinian, each assault being marked by in- 
creased atrocity. It was now completely ruined, and the ancient 
senatorial families were so thinned by the sword, by want, and 
by capital punishments, that they no longer attempted to support 
the dignity of their ancient name. 

The brilliant reign of Justinian proves, even more clearly than 
that of Louis XIV., that a period of glory is seldom one of hap- 
piness. Never did a man furnish more brilliant pictures to his 
panegyrists, who, as they looked but on one side of things, la- 
vished their praises on his extensive conquests, his wise laws, his 
splendid court, his magnificent edifices, and even on the progress 
of the useful arts. Never did a man leave a more grievous re- 
verse to be described by the historian, nor the recollection of ca- 
lamities more general, or more destructive of the human race. 
Justinian conquered the kingdoms of the Vandals and of the Os- 
trogoths; but both these nations were in a manner annihilated by 
their defeat: and before he recovered a province, it was reduced 
to a desert bj the excesses of his armies. He extended the li^ 



194 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [[OHAP. X. 

mits of his empire; but he was unable to defend the territory he 
had received from his predecessors. Every one of the thirty- 
eight years of his reign was marked by an invasion of the barba- 
rians; and it has been said, that reckoning those who fell by the 
sword, who perished from want> or were led into captivity, each 
invasion cost 200,000 subjects to the empire. Calamities, which 
human prudence is unable to resist, seemed to combine against 
the Romans, as if to compel them to expiate their ancient glory. 
Their cities were overwhelmed by earthquakes, more frequent 
than at any other period of history. Antioch, the metropolis of 
Asia, was entirely destroyed, on the 20th of May, 526, at the very 
time when the inhabitants of the adjacent country were assem- 
bled to celebrate the festival of the Ascension; and it is affirmed 
that 250,000 persons were crushed by the fall of its sumptuous 
edifices. This was the beginning of a scourge, which was re- 
newed at short intervals till the end of that century. The plague 
was brought from Pelusium, in Egypt, in 542, and attacked the 
Roman world with such fury, that it did not finally disappear till 
594; so that the very period which gave birth to so many monu- 
ments of greatness, may be looked back upon with horror, as 
that of the widest desolation and the most terrific mortality. 

Justinian was born in 482 or 483, near Sophia, in modern 
Bulgaria, or ancient Dardania. He came of a family of common 
labourers. His uncle Justin, who had enlisted as a private soldier 
in the guards of the emperor Leo, rose by his valour alone from 
rank to rank, till he reached the highest dignity of the state. He 
obtained the purple on the 10th of July, 518, when he was alrea- 
dy sixty-eight years of age; but he had long since summoned to 
his counsels his nephew, to whom he intended to leave his inhe- 
ritance, and whose talents and activity might sustain his declining 
years. Four months before his death, on the first of April, 527, 
Justinian was allowed to share the imperial dignity. He was 
then forty-five years old: he was well acquainted with the policy 
of his uncle's court; but though the nephew of a successful sol- 
dier of fortune, he was personally unknown to tlie army, and 
unaccustomed to actual warfare. After he was seated upon the 
throne, his advancing years, the etiquette of the court of By- 
zantium, and the fears his courtiers expressed for his safety, 
jkept him aloof from the army; and though he made war for 
fthirty-eight years, he never put himself at the head of his sol- 
diers. 



CHAP. X.] JUSTINIAN. 195 

Justinian was, however, extremely an\bitious of military fame, 
even from the commencement of his reign. The situation of the 
empire, the dangers which surrounded him, and the menacing at- 
titude of the barbarians upon all his frontiers, made it his duty 
to adopt the most expeditious means of defence, by restoring the 
discipline of his troops, by encouraging a warlike spirit among 
his subjects, and especially by creating an active militia from 
among the population of his vast territories. The love of a mi- 
litary glory like this would have been no less honourable to the 
sovereign than advantageous to the subjects of the empire, but 
such was not the policy Justinian adopted. Like his predeces- 
sors, he strictly forbade his citizens to carry arms; and though 
some few, hoarded in private families, might escape the vigilance 
of domestic inquisition, every kind of military exercise was po- 
sitively forbidden the people, by the timidity and jealousy of the 
emperor; so that, notwithstanding the immense extent of the em- 
pire and the dense population of the western provinces, levies of 
men were rendered almost impossible. The great generals of 
Justinian undertook their most brilliant expeditions with armies 
of no more than 20,000 men; and these troops consisted chiefly 
of enemies to the empire enlisted under its standard. The ca- 
valry and the archers of Belisarius were composed of Scythian& 
or Massagetes, and of Persians; the infantry of Heruli, Vandals^ 
Goths, and a small number of Thracians, who were the only sub- 
jects of the empire that retained the slightest military ardour* 
The citizens and peasants were not only incapable of fighting for 
life or property in the open field; they dared not even defend the 
ramparts of cities, the fortresses which the emperor had construct- 
ed for them on all the frontiers, nor the long line of walls whiclv 
covered the Thracian Chersonesus, Thermopylae, or the isthmus of 
Corinth. The Bulgarians, who appear to be of Slavonic origin^, 
with a mixture of Tartar blood, took up their abode in the valley 
of the Danube, where they united themselves to other Slavonians 
who had always dwelt there, and who had bent, like a reed, be- 
neath the waves of the inundation, and risen again when it had 
passed over them. These united tribes at length became suffi- 
ciently powerful to devastate the empire. They were distin- 
guished neither by their arms, their discipline, nor their military 
virtues: but they fearlessly crossed the Danube every year to 
make prisoners and carry off booty; they frequently advanced 
300 miles into the country, and Justinian looked upon it as a 



l96 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. X,' 

victory, when he succeeded in obliging them to retire with their 
plunder. 

Another portion of the empire was threatened by a far more 
formidable enemy, who had at his disposal numerous armies, im- 
mense wealth, and almost all the arts of civilization, though he 
made war with the atrocious ferocity of a barbarian. The great 
Chosroes Nushirran, king of Persia, was contemporary with Jus- 
tinian, and his reign was even longer than that of the emperor. 
(a. d. 531 — 579.) When he ascended the throne, hostilities had 
broken out between the two nations 5 but his kingdom was en- 
feebled by civil wars, and by the inroads of the White Huns, so 
that its need of a peaceful and judicious government was not 
less urgent than that of the empire. In 531, Chosroes signed a 
treaty of peace with Justinian, which both monarchs called per- 
petual; and the Greek emperor, instead of taking advantage of it 
to strengthen his frontiers against the frequent aggressions of his 
ancient foes, turned his arms to the conquest of distant provinces, 
which he could scarcely hope to defend. 

The ambitious views of Justinian were first attracted to Afri- 
ca. Genseric died on the 24th of January, 477, after a reign of 
thirty-seven years over Carthage. The crown of the Vandals 
had passed successively to Hunneric, who died in 484, to Gun- 
thamond till 496, and to Thrasamond till 533: these three mo- 
narchs were all sons of Genseric, and all zealous enemies of the 
catholic faith. They carried on the most cruel persecutions in 
the name of the Arian faith: they are accused of having caused 
the tongues of a considerable number of bishops to be torn up by 
the roots; but we are assured by eye-witnesses (not of the pu- 
nishment but of the miracle) that these prelates continued to 
preach with greater eloquence than before, without suffering the 
least inconvenience. In 533, Hilderic, the grandson of Gense- 
ric, succeeded his uncle Thrasamond; he recalled the exiled 
bishops, and during seven years the Roman subjects in Africa 
lived under a more paternal rule. The Vandals, however, soon 
regretted the tyranny which they were accustomed to exercise 
over the nations they had subdued. They accused their monarch 
of indolence and effeminacy, while they were themselves open 
to the charge of having too soon yielded to the enervating influ- 
ence of those sultry regions; the wealth they had acquired by 
the sabre was dissipated without restraint and without shame; 
they were constantly surrounded by slaves, like the Mamelukes 



CHAP. X.] BELISARIUS.— AFRICAN WArJ" 197 

of our own times^ and though their amusements were all of a 
martial kind, they delighted in the pomp rather than in the fa- 
tigue of warlike exercise. Gelimer, of the rojal blood of the 
Vandals, imbittered their resentment^ he headed a conspiracy 
against Hilderic, threw that prince into a dungeon, and took pos- 
session of his throne.- 

The war of Africa was undertaken by Justinian under pre^ 
tence of restoring the legitimate succession to the throne, and of 
delivering Hilderic from prison. The emperor was encouraged 
in his designs by the state of anarchy in which Africa was 
plunged. A lieutenant of Gelimer had raised the standard of 
revolt in Sardinia, and had caused himself to be crowned king: 
on the other hand, an African Roman had incited his country- 
men of Tripoli, in the name of the Athanasian creed, and had 
raised the banner of the empire. Justinian was encouraged by 
the prophecies of the orthodox bishops, which all promised him 
success^ and by putting Belisarius at the head of the expedition, 
he adopted the means most likely to ensure it. 

Belisarius, who was born among the peasants of Thrace, had 
begun his career in the guards of the emperor Justin. He had 
already distinguished himself in the Persian war, at a juncture 
of considerable difficulty 5 after a defeat, for which he was not to 
blame, he displayed more ability than is usually shown in victory, 
and saved the army which was intrusted to him. He was about 
the same age as th(^ emperor, and like him he was governed by 
his wife; like him, he was faithful to one who was destitute both 
of the modesty and the gentleness of her sex. Justinian, on his 
accession, hastened to share the honours of his new dignity with 
Theodora, the daughter of a charioteer in the public circus, who 
had united the infamy of a vicious life to the degradation of her 
father's occupation, until the emperor raised her to the throne. 
Henceforward her manners were irreproachable 5 her advice was 
frequently courageous and energetic 5 but her cruelty and her 
avarice contributed to render the emperor odious. Antonina, the 
wife of Belisarius, was also the daughter of a public charioteer; 
her conduct had been as irregular as that of the empress, her 
character was equally firm and audacious: unlike Theodora, how- 
ever, she did not conquer her early propensities,- but, though a 
faithless wife, she was a faithful friend to her husband. Admit- 
ted to the confidence of the empress, she led the way to Belisa- 
rius's future greatness, she defended him by her influence, and 

26 



198 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. X. 

maintained him at the head of the army, in spite of the intrigues 
of his rivals. 

Not more than 10,000 foot and 5,000 horse were embarked at 
Constantinople for the conquest of Africa, under the command 
of Belisarius, in the month of June, 533. The fleet which con- 
veyed this army was unable to make the whole voyage without 
taking in provisions; it was received with indiscreet hospitality 
in a Sicilian port, then dependent on the Ostrogoths. The bar- 
baric kings who had partitioned out the provinces of the Roman 
empire, would have done well to recollect that their cause was a 
common one; their means of resistance would then have been 
far superior to any means of attack possessed by the Greeks: pri- 
vate offences and family quarrels had, however, disturbed their 
mutual relations; the marriages of kings with the daughters of 
kings began to exercise their fatal influence, by embroiling those 
they were intended to unite; so that the Ostrogoths, the Visi- 
goths, the Franks, and the Vandals, blindly rejoiced in each 
other's disasters. 

Belisarius landed in September, 533, at Caput Vadae, which is 
about fiive days' journey from Carthage. The Vandals were so^ 
little prepared for this invasion, that the brother of Gelimer was 
at that very time with the best troops of the army in Sardinia, 
where he was endeavouring to quell the insurrection. This cir- 
cumstance induced Gelimer to avoid a battle for some days. But 
while he was thus temporizing, he afforded Belisarius an oppor- 
tunity of impressing the inhabitants of the provinces (the Afri- 
cans, who were still called Romans,) with a high idea of the dis- 
cipline of his army, of the liberal protection he was inclined to 
afford them, and of the mildness of his own character. Belisa- 
rius founded his hopes of conquest on the sympathies of the peo- 
ple: he displayed such a paternal benevolence towards these pro- 
vincials, whom he came to protect and not to subdue; he sa 
carefully respected their rights, and so scrupulously spared their 
property, that the Africans, who had long been oppressed, humi- 
liated, and robbed by their barbarian masters, no sooner hailed 
the Roman eagles, than they imagined that the days of their 
greatest prosperity under the Antonines were returned. Before 
the arrival of Belisarius, Gelimer reigned over seven or eight 
millions of subjects, in a country which had, perhaps, contained 
80,000,000; on a sudden he found himself alone with his Van- 
dals in the midst of a Roman population. The historian Proco^ 



CHAP. X.] BELISARIUS.— AFRICAN WAR. 199 

plus, who seeks to exaggerate the number of the conquered, in 
order to enhance the glory of the conquest, asserts that the na- 
tion did not possess fewer than 160,000 men capable of bearing 
arms; — a considerable number certainly, and one which supposes 
a rapid increase since the former conquest; but extremely small, 
if it be taken to denote a nation, and not an army. 

Gelimer attacked Belisarius with all the troops he had been 
able to muster, on the 14th of September, at about ten miles from 
Carthage: his army was routed, his brother and his nephew were 
killed, and he himself was obliged to fly to the deserts of Numi- 
dia, after having caused his predecessor Hilderic to be murdered 
in prison. On the morrow Belisarius entered Carthage, and that 
great capital, in which the Romans still far outnumbered the Van- 
dals, received him as a deliverer. 

Never was there a more rapid conquest tban that of the vast 
kingdom of the Vandals; never did the disproportion between 
the number of the conquerors and the conquered more clearly 
show that tyranny is the worst policy, and that the abuse of vic- 
tory by those who govern with the sword, hollows a sepulchre be- 
neath their thrones. In the beginning of September Belisarius 
had landed in Africa; before the end of November Gelimer had re- 
called his second brother from Sardinia, collected another army, 
fought and lost another battle; Africa was conquered, and the 
kingdom of the Vandals destroyed. The army of Belisarius 
would have required much more time merely to advance along 
the coast, but the Roman fleet transported to Ceuta the tribunes 
of the soldiers who were to take tke command of the towns; they 
were every where received with acclamation; every where the 
Vandals were intimidated, submitted without resistance, and 
disappeared. Gelimer, who had retired into a distant fortress of 
Numidia with a small retinue, capitulated in the following spring, 
and the terms of his submission were most honourably observed 
by Justinian. Gelimer received ample possessions in Galatia, 
where he was allowed to grow old in peace, surrounded by his 
friends and kinsfolk. The observance of faith plighted to a ri- 
val was too rare a virtue in those times for us to pass it by in si- 
lence. The bravest of the Vandals enlisted in the troops of the 
empire, and served under the immediate orders of Belisarius. 
The remainder of the nation was involved in the convulsions of 
Africa which v^^e shall shortly mention, and ere long entirely dis- 
appeared. 



200 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. X. 

Justinian demanded trophies from his generals, but he grudged 
them their successes. His jealousy at the rapid victories of Be- 
lisarius was intense. Before the close of that same autumn of 
534 which had sufficed for the conquest of a kingdom, too soon 
for the welfare of Africa, he ordered him to return to Constanti^ 
nople. In the matchless character of Belisarius, the virtues 
themselves seemed adapted to the despotism under which he 
served. The will of his sovereign, and not the welfare of the 
empire, was the sole end of his actions, and the sole standard of 
what he judged to be good or evil. He foresaw that his recall 
would be the ruin of Africa, but he did not hesitate to obey the 
mandate. As he was embarking at Carthage, he saw the flames 
which were already lighted by the insurgent Moors in the pro- 
vinces which he had reconquered, and he predicted that his work 
would be undone as rapidly as it had been accomplished^ but the 
will of the emperor seemed to him to he the will of fate. His 
prompt obedience allayed the jealousy which his remarkable suc- 
cess had excited, and Justinian allowed him the honours of a tri- 
umph, and the consulate for the ensuing year. This triumph was 
the first which Constantinople had ever seen conferred upon a 
subject. 

The conquest of Africa was no sooner accomplished, than Jus- 
tinian projected that of Italy, and he designed to subdue the Os- 
trogoths by the same general who had acquired so much glory in 
defeating the Vandals. A Roman emperor may be supposed to 
have thought his honour interested in the possession of Rome and 
of Italy, but the West had no reasons for wishing him success. 
The Vandals had rendered themselves odious by their cruelty, 
their religious persecutions, and their piracies^ but the Goths had 
better claims on public esteem: they were the wisest, the most 
temperate, and the most virtuous of the Germanic tribes, and 
they gave substantial grounds of hope to the nations which they 
had regenerated. Their glory did not terminate with the reign 
of Theodoric, but to the very close of the struggle in which they 
perished they displayed virtues which we look for in vain amongst 
the other barbarians. 

V^e have seen that upon the death of the great Theodoric, 
(a. D. 526,) the crown of Italy descended to his grandson Atha- 
laric, who was then only ten years old, under the regency of his 
mother Amalasonta. This princess, who had lost her husband 
l^efore her father's death, attempted to procure for her son, the 



CHAP. X.] BELISARIUS. ITALIAN WAR. 201 

only hope of his family and of his nation, those advantages of a 
liberal education which she had herself enjoyed. But Athalaric, 
who felt the irksomeness of study more than its advantages, 
easily found young courtiers who persuaded him that the protect- 
ing care of his mother was degrading to him. The old warriors 
of the nation had not lost their prejudices against Roman in- 
struction, and Roman manners; Athalaric was removed from his 
mother's guardianship, and, before he was sixteen, drunkenness 
and debauchery brought him to tlie grave, (a. d. 534.) Out of 
respect for the blood of Theodoric, and the grief of Amalasonta, 
she was allowed by the Goths to choose the future partner of her 
throne from amongst her kindred. She accordingly bestowed 
her hand on Theodatus, who, like herself, preferred studious 
pursuits to the boisterous revelry of the Goths; who passed for 
a philosopher; whom she believed to be destitute of ambition, 
and who had, indeed, sworn to her that, grateful for so signal a 
favour, he would respect her commands and allow her to rule 
alone, whilst he shared her throne in appearance. No sooner, 
however, was he crowned, than he caused his benefactress to be 
arrested, (30th of April, 535,) conveyed as a prisoner to an island 
in the lake of Bolsena, and a few months afterwards strangled in 
her bath. Justinian embraced the cause of Amalasonta, as he 
had embraced that of Hilderic, to avenge, though not to protect 
her. Belisarius received orders to prepare for the conquest of 
Italy, but the army v/ith which he was intrusted for this impor- 
tant enterprise, amounted only to 4500 barbarian horsemen, and 
8000 Isaurian foot-soldiers. Belisarius landed in Sicily in 535, 
and in the first campaign of the Gothic war he subdued that 
island; the city of Palermo alone offered him som^e resistance. 

In the following year Belisarius transported his army to Reg' 
gio in Calabria, marching along the coast, accompanied by his 
fleet, till he arrived at Naples: no forces were sent to oppose his 
progress; he was assisted by the same favourable circumstances 
as in Africa, and his humanity and moderation procured for him 
the same advantages in Italy as in that country. On a sudden 
the Goths perceived, with consternation, that they were in an 
isolated position, in the midst of a people which invoked their 
enemies as its liberators. All their plans of defence were con- 
founded, treason began to show itself in their ranks, and a rela- 
tion of Theodatus, to whom the government of Calabria had been 
intrusted, passed over to the standard of the emperor. The 



20S FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. X. 

cowardice of their king was, however, the chief cause of the 
ruin of the Goths. Theodatus had shut himself up in Rome, 
whilst Belisarius besieged Naples, and entered it bj means of an 
aqueduct. The nation of the Goths, which still reckoned 250,000 
warriors, dispersed, indeed, from the Danube and the Rhone to 
the extremities of Italy, would no longer submit to so degrading 
a yoke. Vitiges, a brave general, who had been ordered to se- 
cure the approaches to Rome, was suddenly proclaimed king by 
the soldiers, and raised upon the buckler,* whilst Theodatus, as 
soon as he heard of this revolt, took flight, and was slain by the 
hand of a private enemy, against whom he did not even attempt 
to defend himself. (August, 536.) 

After the election of Vitiges, the war of the Ostrogoths assumed 
a new character. The struggle was no longer one of cowardice 
and improvidence with talent^ it lay between two great men, both 
of them masters of the art of war, both equally worthy of the 
love and of the confidence of their respective nations; both con- 
tending against insurmountable difficulties. Belisarius was, as 
he had been in Africa, just, humane, generous, and brave: he 
won the hearts of the Italians; but his court kept him without 
money, and almost without an army. The hard law of necessi- 
ty, the orders he received from Constantinople, and the rapacious 
colleagues who were sent out to him, compelled him to sustain 
the war by plunder, and to strip those whom he would have wil- 
lingly protected. Vitiges was still at the head of a powerful and 
martial people; but his kingdom was disorganized, time was need- 
ed to collect his scattered battalions, and to revive the confidence 
of his soldiers, who believed that they were surrounded by trai- 
tors. He found it necessary to evacuate Rome, (which Belisa- 
rius occupied on the 10th of December, 536,) and even to quit 
the lower part of Italy, and fall back upon Ravenna, in order to 
restore the discipline of his army. As soon as he had organized 
his forces, he returned, in the month of March following, to be- 
siege Belisarius in the ancient capital which he had ceded to him. 

Our prescribed limits do not allow us to give any detailed ac- 
count of the military operations even of the greatest general. A 
succinct abridgment, like the present, does not profess to afford 
any instruction in the art of war. We merely design to present, 
in one picture, the fall of the ancient empire, and the dispersal 
of those elements out of which the modern world was to arise, 
referring to other works for details. Nor would it be without re- 



CHAP. X.J BELISARIUS. ITALIAN WAR. 203 

pugnance that we should dwell upon the sufferings of humanity*, 
or the unparalleled calamities which were caused by two virtuous 
chiefs. The spectacle of the excesses of tyranny is far less pain- 
ful, for then our indignation relieves our sympathy. In record- 
ing the crimes of the sons of Clovis, the horror these monsters 
inspire, leaves no room for pity. But when Vitiges besieged Be- 
lisarius in Rome during a whole year, two heroes sacrificed two 
nations to their animosity. Belisarius kept up the courage of his 
feeble garrison by his intrepidity, his patience, and his perseve- 
rance, whilst the entire population of Rome was perishing by fa- 
mine: Vitiges, equally inflexible, led back the battalions of his 
Goths to the walls of Rome, until the assailants were all de- 
stroyed by the sword, or by pestilential diseases. His courage 
and his ability shone conspicuously in this deadly war: if he had 
succeeded, the independence of his nation was secured 5 but it 
perished in these fatal conflicts. 

Justinian had desired that Italy should again be classed amongst 
the provinces of the Roman empire. But his vanity was satisfied 
by the mere possession of the soil on which the Romans had raised 
their power; and he purchased it by the sacrifice of all that made 
it glorious or valuable. Rome was defended, but during the long- 
famine to which it was reduced it lost almost all its inhabitants. 
The Goths were conquered; but they were destroyed, not sub- 
dued, and the void they left in the energetic and warlike popu- 
lation of Italy was never repaired. The Italians were delivered 
from a yoke which they thought debasing, but they fell under one 
a thousand times worse. The long continuance of the war, and- 
the pressure of want, did violence to the natural moderation of 
Belisarius, and, moreover, gave him time to receive direct 
orders from Justinian, instead of following his own impulses. 

The extortions practised on the Roman subjects were rigorous' 
in the extreme, and that population, which had repaired its losses^ 
during the protecting reign of Theodoric, was swept off by famine, 
pestilence, and the avenging sword of the Goths: the glorious^ 
monuments of Italy,-— the very stones, — were not exempt from 
destruction. The master-works of art were used as military en- 
gines, and the statues which adorned the mole of Adrian were^ 
hurled down upon the besiegers. In his utmost need, Vitiges had 
demanded the succour of the Franks, and a dreadful invasion of 
that barbarian people, which was marked by the destruction of 
Milan and Genoa, (a. d. 538, 539,) taught the Goths, that these 
fierce warriors, thirsting for booty and for blood, did not eveft 



204 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. X. 

care to distinguish their allies from their enemies. On the same 
day they cut to pieces the army of the Goths, and the army of 
the Greeks, which had both reckoned upon their assistance^ at 
length they almost all perished from want in the Cisalpine coun- 
try, which they had devastated; and when soldiers like these perish 
from huno-er, it is easy to infer that nothing remains either to the 
peasant or to the citizen, which their oppressors can pillage or de- 
stroy. 

In March, 538, when the Goths were obliged to raise the siege 
of Rome, Belisarius profited by their discouragement, their suf- 
ferings, and their faults; he laid siege in his turn to Ravenna, and 
forced Yitiges to give up that town, and to surrender himself 
prisoner. (December, 539.) Yitiges was as deeply indebted to 
the generosity of Justinian, as Gelimer had been; he passed his 
days in affluence at Constantinople: Belisarius was at the same 
time recalled from Italy. 

Justinian hastened to recall his general after each victory, and 
Belisarius was not less prompt in his obedience; but every time 
he quitted the command, the provinces he abandoned were ex- 
posed to the most dreadful calamities; and the whole empire had 
ample reason to regret that the fate of several millions of men de- 
pended on the caprices of a court, on the mistrust or the envy of 
a haughty woman, or of a jealous despot. Five years before, at 
the very time when Belisarius was leaving Africa, in obedience 
to the orders of Justinian, a rebellion broke out among the Moors, 
and the hero, who was submissively leaving those shores in the 
moment of danger, could see from his vessel the fires w^hich were 
kindled over the country by the very enemy from whose attacks 
he had hitherto protected it. The ministers of Justinian seemed 
studiously to increase, by their vexatious enactments, the resent- 
ment of the armed population of Africa, the weakness and the 
degradation of the unarmed. The wandering Moor, whose ha- 
bits were, even in that age, not unlike those of the Bedouin Arab, 
endeavoured to destroy all cultivation, all permanent dwellings, 
and industrious arts, and drove civilization back to the sea-coast: 
there it was restricted to the maritime towns and their narrow 
suburbs; so that during the remainder of Justinian's reign it was 
estimated that the province of Africa barely equalled one-third 
of the province of Italy. 

The retirement of Belisarius after the capture of Yitiges was 
followed by similar calamities; Pavia was the only town of impor- 
tance which still resisted tlie Roman yoke. It was defended by 



CHAP. X.] ITALIAN WAR. ^05 

a thousand Goths, who proclaimed their chief Hildebald king: he, 
as well as his successor Eraric, was assassinated within the year, 
and was succeeded by Totila, a young kinsman of Vitiges, whose 
excellent abilities were only equalled by his bravery and his hu- 
manity. This new king repaired the dilapidated fortunes of the 
Goths by his remarkable virtues as much as by his victories: he 
recalled to the army the sons of those who had already fallen in 
its ranks: he harassed, attacked, and routed successively eleven 
generals, to whom Justinian had intrusted the defence of the dif- 
ferent towns of Italy: he crossed the whole peninsula, from 
Verona to Naples, in order to collect the scattered warriors of his 
nation, who had been obliged to submit in every province, and in 
the course of three years (a. d. 541 — 544,) the kingdom of the Os- 
trogoths became, under his command, as extensive, if not as pow- 
erful, as it was when the war began. Justinian occasionally sent 
re-enforcements to his generals in Italy, but these scanty supplies 
served only to prolong a contest which they could not hope to ter- 
minate. The arrival of 200 men from Constantinople was looked 
upon as an event; and such was the universal desolation of Italy, 
that bands of one or two hundred soldiers crossed its whole ex- 
tent without meeting any sufficient obstacle to their progress. 
In 544, Justinian sent back Belisarius, but without an armyi so 
that for four years this hero was compelled to struggle with his 
adversary, more like a captain of banditti than a distinguished 
general; the extent of the havoc was disproportioned to their scan- 
ty resources, and a handful of soldiers on either side burnt and de- 
stroyed what they were unable to defend. 

Totila besieged Rome for a long time, and obtained possession 
of it on the 17th of December, 546; he determined to destroy a 
city which had displayed such inveterate hostility to the Goths; 
he razed the walls, and forced the inhabitants to seek a refuge in 
the Campania. For forty days the ancient capital of the world 
remained deserted. Belisarius took advantage of this occurrence 
to re-enter it, and fortify himself in it once more; but he was 
again obliged to quit it. Justinian, in leaving this great man to 
contend, almost without money and without troops, against an 
enemy infinitely superior to him in strength, seemed to be /la- 
bouring to destroy a reputation of which he was jealous. When 
he recalled Belisarius for the second time, Italy was ravaged for 
four yeai'S by the conflicting fury of civil and foreign war; the 
Franks and Germans made another incursion without the autho- 

27" 



206 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. X. 

ritj of their government, without leaders, and with the sole ob- 
ject of plundering on a large scale. At length, in 552, Justinian 
formed an arm j of 30,000 men; he appointed a man to command 
it, in whom we scarcely expect to find the talents or the charac- 
ter of a hero; but the eunuch Narses, who had passed his youth 
in directing the tasks of the women in the palace, and had gained 
experience in various embassies in his later years, fully justified 
the choice of Justinian, when placed at the head of the army. 
In the month of July, 552, lie gained a great victory over the 
Goths, in the neighbourliood of Rome, when Totila was slain: in 
the month of March, 553, he won another battle near Naples, 
in which Teia, who had been chosen to succeed Totila, was also 
killed: and thus was accomplished the overthrow of the monar- 
chy of the Ostrogoths, the almost total destruction of that nation, 
and the submission to the emperor of the sad deserts of that 
Italy, in which all that was most delicious and magnificent in the 
world had so long been accumulated. 

After the victories of Narses, Italy was governed, in the name 
of the emperor of Constantinople, by exarchs, who resided at 
Ravenna, though, indeed, the government of the country scarce- 
ly remained sixteen years under the control of the empire of the 
East: the fortified town of Ravenna, however, and the Pentapo- 
Hs, which is now called La Romagna, not in memory of Rome, 
but of the Greeks who afiected to call themselves Romans, long 
formed part of its possessions. La Romagna and some other 
smaller provinces continued for two centuries, that is, until 752^ 
to be governed by the exarch of Italy; another exarch governed 
Africa, and resided at Carthage. Justinian had even extended 
his conquests to some cities in Spain, and had contributed to 
to keep alive anarchy in that great peninsula; but as the Roman 
province which he had recovered was not sufficiently important 
to deserve a third exarch, Greek dukes were appointed to such 
of the Spanish towns as opened their gates to the generals of 
Justinian, and of his successors, from 550 to 620. 

The wars which Justinian carried on in the East against Chos- 
roes occasioned as much misery as his expedition in the West. 
Syria was entirely occupied, and the frontiers of Armenia were 
devastated by the Persians, whilst Colchis was disputed with the 
greatest obstinacy, for sixteen years, by the two empires, (a. d. 
540 — 556.) After a prodigious waste of human life, the frontiers 
of the Romans and the Persians remained much the same as they 



CHAP. X.] PERSIAN WAR. 207 . 

v/ere before the war: as those countries have remained in a bar- 
barous state ever since, they the less merit our notice. 

Justinian was nearly eighty years of age, when he was obliged 
to have recourse for the last time to the valour and ability of his 
general, who was not less aged than himself, in order to repel an 
invasion of the Bulgarians, who, in 559, advanced to the gates 
of Constantinople. The venerable Belisarius was looked upon 
as the only safeguard of the empire; he with difficulty collected 
300 of those soldiers, who, in happier years., had shared his toils| 
to these was added a timorous troop of peasants and recruits, 
who refused to fight. He succeeded, however, in repulsing the 
Bulgarians; but this success, and the enthusiasm of the people, 
excited the jealousy and the fears of Justinian, who had invaria- 
bly punished his general for the victories he gained. In 540, he 
had been condemned to a fine amounting to ^6120,000 sterling: 
in 563 a conspiracy against the emperor was discovered, Belisa- 
rius was implicated in it; and whilst his pretended accomplices 
were executed, Justinian affected to pardon his old servant; but 
be caused his eyes to be torn out, and confiscated his v/hole for- 
tune. This account is adopted by the young and learned bio- 
^apher of Belisarius, lord Mahon, though it only rests upon the 
authority of historians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
The general who had conquered two kingdoms was to be seen, 
blind, and led by a child, holding out a wooden cup before the 
convent of Lauros to crave the pittance of an obolus. It ap- 
pears, however, that the disappi-obation of the people caused Jus- 
tinian to repent his severity, and Belisarius was restored to his 
palace, where he died on the 13th of March, 565: Justinian also 
expired on the 14th of September, in the same year. 

The glory which Justinian derives from the collection and 
publication of the ancient Roman laws, is more solid and more 
durable than that of his conquests. The Pandects and the Code, 
which were arranged and promulgated by his authority, contain 
the immense store of the wisdom of preceding ages; and we 
cannat but be astonished at finding so much respect for law in 
the character of a despot; so much virtue in so corrupt an age; 
so deep a reverence for antiquity, at a time when every institu- 
tion was overthrown; and, lastly, a system of legislation entirely 
Latin, published by a Greek in the midst of Greeks. For, al- 
though Justinian sometimes substituted the stamp of servility for 
the noble and primitive character of the ancient law; though he 



208 FALL OF THE ROMAX EMPIRE. [cHAP. X, 

occasionally deranged a system which had been slowly matured 
by the jurists, to satisfy the whim of the moment, or his own 
personal interest, it cannot be denied that the work he sanc- 
tioned is a valuable monument of justice and of reason, of which 
he was, though not the author, the preserver. 

That absolute government which had corrupted every Roman 
virtue, did not, in the time of Justinian, even give internal peace 
to the people in exchange for their lost liberty. Despotism may 
render civil war and popular commotions dishonourable, but it 
cannot suppress them. There was no longer sufficient virtue in 
Constantinople to induce a man to expose his life in the defence 
of his civil rights, for the honour of his country, or for the laws 
which he regarded as sacred j but battles were fought for the 
charioteers of the circus. Chariot-racing, which had been a fa- 
vourite amusement of the Romans, was introduced into Constan- 
tinople, and afterwards into all the great towns of the empire; 
the prizes were contended for by charioteers dressed either in a 
blue or a green uniform: the entire population was divided into 
two parties distinguished by these colours. Two hostile factions 
broke out throughout the empire; religion, politics, morality, li- 
berty, and all the lofty sentiments of human nature, had no part 
in their animosity; but the Greens and the Blues, who were only 
contending for the prizes of the circus, could not be satisfied 
without shedding each other's blood. Justinian himself, worked 
upon by an ancient enmity of Theodora, embraced the cause of 
the Blues, and, during his reign, the Greens could never obtain 
justice. The judges, who were to pass sentence on the property, 
the good name, or the lives of the citizens, examined less into 
their conduct and their rights than into the colour of their party. 
On several occasions, private violence assumed the character of 
open sedition; but in 532, during the most terrible of these re- 
volts, which is called Nika, or victory, from the cry which was 
adopted, the capital remained for five days in the power of an 
infuriated mob: the cathedral, several churches, baths, theatres, 
palaces, and a large portion of the town, was reduced to ashes. 
Justinian, who was on the point of taking flight, was only main- 
tained upon the thi'one by the firmness of his wife Theodora. 
Torrents of blood were shed by men who were too cowardfy to 
defend their country against barbarians, or their rights against 
internal oppression. 



( 209 ) 



CHAPTER XL 

Saccesslon of Greek Emperors. — Narses, Exarch of Italy The Gepidse 

and the Lombards, between the Alps and the Danube. — Romantic Story 
of Alboin, King of the Lombards; his Conquest of the Gepidse; his In- 
vasion of Italy. — Resistance of the maritime Cities of Italy; their inter- 
nal Government. — Maritime Cities of Spain, Africa, and Ulyricum, — 
Growth of municipal Liberties. — Independence of the Lombards; their 

thirty Dukes in Italy. — The four Frankic King-s, Sons of Chlothaire. 

Growth of a territorial Aristocracy. — The Mord Dom, or supreme Judge 
of the Franks. — The four Kingdoms of Germ.any. — Gontran, surnamed 
**llie Good." — Chilperic, the Nero of France.— Fredegunde. — Brune- 
childe. — Efforts of Gontran to keep down the Nobles. — Scene in the Na- 
tional Assembly of the Franks, from Gregory of Tours. — Childebert II.; 
his Ferocity. — Energy, Talents, and Cruelty of Brunechilde. — Her Suc- 
cesses. — Her Defeat and miserable Death. — a. d. 561 — 613. 

At the time when the empire of the West was overthrown, 
when each of its provinces was occupied by a different people, 
and when as many kingdoms were founded as there were daring 
chiefs at the head of a horde of barbarians, the world presented 
a scene of such complex and conflicting interests, that it see.med 
a very difficult task to follow the general progress of events. 
This difficulty has, however, ceased, in a great measure, as far 
as we are concerned. From the reign of Justinian, the interest 
of European history lies almost entirely between the Greek em- 
pire aiid the kingdom of the Franks, which, although it had not 
yet acquired the title of empire, stood at the head of the whole 
of western Europe. This exclusive interest, this almost univer- 
sal monarchy of the Franks in the West, continued until the 
end of the reign of Louis le Debonnaire, and the civil wars be- 
tween his children in 840. 

During these three centuries, the history of the Latin world is 
frequently obscure, generally barbarous, and always incomplete^ 
but it is constantly connected with the progressive revolutions of 
that great people which will be the principal object of our obser- 
vations. During the same period the history of the East became 
extremely complicated; the sceptre of Justinian passed succes- 
sively to his nephew, Justin the younger, (a. d. 565 — 574;) from 
him to Tiberius IL, (574— 58^;) to Maurice, (582—602;) to 



210 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI. 

Phocas, (602—610^) and to Heraclius, (610—642.) Three of 
these princes, Tiberius, Maurice, and Heraclius, were distin- 
guished by their virtues: and the claim of this period to the epi- 
thet of glorious, is, at least, equal to that of the reign of Justi- 
nian. It would probably be esteemed so, if the events were bet- 
ter known 5 but, in monarchies, the interest excited by public 
concerns is not sufficiently strong to induce many men of distin- 
guished talents to devote themselves to the severe labours of the 
historian. Annals are seldom continued from the zeal of their 
authors alone: the vanity of the monarch may, indeed, lead him 
to appoint an historiographer, but, at the same time, it forbids the 
salaried historian to tell the truth. Events are then only record- 
ed in panegyrics, which inspire no confidence, or in dry and in- 
sipid chronicles, which excite no interest. The good fortune by 
which the reign of Justinian possessed a great historian was rare 
indeed in the history of Byzantium. 

This same period answers to that of the birth and education of 
a man, who was destined in his maturer years to change the face 
of the world. Justinian died in 565, and Mohammed was born 
in 569^ yet, until his flight to Medina, in 622, the remainder of 
the world, and even Arabia itself, was almost unconscious of his 
existence; and as the ten last years of his life, (a. d. 622 — 632,) 
after he had obtained the sovereign power, were devoted to the 
conquest of that great peninsula, the empire only learned the 
mighty revolution which had taken place, when (a. d. 628 — 632) 
it was called upon for the first time to meet the Musulmauns in 
the field. 

Before we engage in the history of the founder of the new re- 
ligion, we shall, in another chapter, survey the state of the East, 
and the conquests and defeats of Chosroes II., whose memorable 
reign cast a lustre, which was but the harbinger of its fall, over 
the monarchy of the Sassanian Persians. Our present object has 
been simply to recall the concordance of events in the different 
parts of the world, before we return to the history of the West. 

That country, which had so long been looked upon as the 
queen of the earth,— that Italy, which had been ruined and de- 
solated by the wars of the Greeks, and by the annihilation of the 
monarchy of the Ostrogoths, soon underwent another revolution. 
The eunuch Narses, who had conquered, was appointed to go- 
vern it; in his extreme old age he administered for fifteen years 
(a. d. 553-^568) the affairs of a country, which, perhaps, stood 



CHAP. XI.] NARSES. LOMBARDS. 2U 

in need of a younger and more active ruler. This extraordinary 
man, who is said to have attained the age of ninetj-five, had 
established himself at Ravenna, whence he once more imposed 
the laws of the empire on the Italians^ laws of which they knew 
little, except the grievous imposts heaped upon them in their 
name. Narses was the avaricious servant of an avaricious mas- 
tery he was accused of amassing excessive wealth by draining 
the people, who enjoyed no advantages which might compensate 
for the costliness of their government. The fugitives who had 
been dispersed by the Greek and Gothic armies, gradually con- 
gregated in the towns; Milan arose from its ruins, and the other 
cities recovered a part of their population; but the country was 
entirely deserted, and the crops which sustained the remnant of 
the Italians were, probably, raised by the hands of citizens: 
no one dared to inhabit the rural districts, at a time when public 
force was extinct, and no protection was ensured to the agricul- 
turist. The events which occurred at the close of the adminis- 
tration of Narses, showed that there was no army in Italy; al- 
though barbarous and hostile nations, who were acquainted with 
the roads throughout the country, were besieging its approaches. 

Narses was driven from his post in the most insulting manner 
by the empress Sophia, wife of Justin II., who sent him a distaff, 
and told him that he ought to resume those feminine occupations 
for which he was fitted. He has been accused of having sum- 
moned the barbarians to assist him in avenging himself, but it is 
certain that such an invitation was unnecessary. 

In that district, which had once been Roman, extending from 
the foot of the Alps to the Danube, the Gepidse, of Gothic, and 
the Lombards, of Vandal race, had taken up their abode: both 
of these tribes were said to surpass in ferocity any of the pre- 
ceding enemies of the empire; both of them had accepted the 
alliance of the Greeks for the sake of tribute, disguised under 
the name of pension. The Gepidse were to guard the entrance 
to Italy: the Lombards had contributed to the conquest of that 
country, by the valiant auxiliaries they had furnished to Narses, 
The most virulent animosity divided these two nations, which 
had been kept alive by the romantic, and, perhaps, fabulous ad- 
ventures related of their kings. The historians of a barbarous 
people are always unacquainted with, or indifferent to, the do- 
mestic events of their country: kings, alone, appear upon the 
scene; their adventures take the place of national exploits; and 



212 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI. 

even the fictions of which they are the heroes, merit some atten- 
tion, as the J show us the bent of the popular imagination. 

Alboln, the young heir to the throne of the Lombards, had 
already displayed his valour in an expedition against the Gepidae, 
and had slain with his own hand the son of their king; neverthe- 
less, his father would not consent to admit him to his table until 
he had received his arms from the hands of some foreign sove- 
reign. Such was the invariable custom of their nation, after- 
wards incorporated into the laws of chivalry, and called the 
arming of a knight. This custom is attested by Paul Warne- 
frid, a Lombard historian, contemporary with Charlemagne. 
Alboin, with forty of his bravest companions, did not hesitate to 
ask his knightly arms at the hands of Thurisund, king of the 
Gepidse, and father of the prince whom he had slain. The du- 
ties of hospitality were more sacred in the eyes of the old king 
than those of vengeance, and the prince was received at the ta- 
ble of the monarch of the Gepidse; he was arrayed in new ar- 
mour, and protected amid the disorder of a banquet, at which 
Cunimund, another son of Thurisund, attempted to avenge his 
brother. This warlike hospitality, with which so many vindic- 
tive and hostile feelings were mingled, gave Alboin an opportu- 
nity of inflicting a fresh outrage on the royal house of the Ge- 
pidse: he carried off Rosamunde, the daughter of Cunimund, 
but he was overtaken before he could escape; the princess was 
taken from him, his offer of marriage rejected, and the two kings, 
as well as the two nations, excited by mutual aggressions, mutu- 
ally determined on each other's destruction. Their hostility 
broke out when Alboin and Cunimund had both succeeded to 
their aged parents. The Lombard king, perceiving that he was 
the weakerj sought for foreign assistance: he enlisted the Saxons 
under his standard, and he more especially strengthened his 
forces by an alliance with the khan of the Avars, a nomadic peo- 
ple, which had descended from the mountains of Tartary, and 
had crossed all the Slavonian and Sarmatian deserts, in its flight 
from the vengeance of the Turks. The Avars had threatened 
the frontiers of the Greeks, invaded the territory of several Ger- 
man nations subject to the Franks, and had afterwards roamed 
over the north of Europe with their flocks, seeking to possess 
themselves of some territory by the sword. Alboin united his 
desire of vengeance on the Gepidae, to a design which he che- 
rished of conquering Italy and establishing his people in that 



CHAP. XI.] ALBOIN.— INVASION OF ITALY. 213 

country. The valley of the Danube had been so cruelly devas- 
tated by successive barbarous hordes, that every trace of its an- 
cient civilization was effaced. Its rich pastures were peculiarly 
adapted to a pastoral people; but the Germans were unwilling 
to perform the drudgery of the mechanical or agricultural arts, 
though they had learned to appreciate the enjoyments they pro- 
cure : they accordingly wished to subdue a country in which the 
conquered people should work for them, and they concluded a 
singular treaty with the Avars, by which it was stipulated that 
they should attack the Gepidae, destroy their monarchy, and di- 
vide their spoils in common; but that, after this conquest, the 
Lombards should abandon their own country, as well as that of 
their subdued enemies, to their allies, and start themselves to 
seek their fortune elsewhere. These extraordinary conditions 
were literally fulfilled; the kingdom of the Gepidae was overrun; 
their army was defeated by Alboin in a great battle, (a. d. 566;) 
their wealth was divided between the conquerors; the inhabi- 
tants of the country were reduced to slavery, and the princess 
Rosamunde was given back to Alboin, who married her. At the 
same time the Lombards prepared to abandon to the Avars Pan- 
nonia and Noricum, where they had dwelt for forty -two years. 
They gathered together their wives, their children, their old 
men, and their slaves, removed all their valuables, and having 
set fire to their houses, migrated towards the Italian Alps. 

Alboin, who united to his own character all the virtues and all 
the vices of a barbarian, was not less remarkable for his prudence 
and his valour, than for his ferocity and intemperance. The na- 
tion of the Lombards, of which he was the leader, had been dis- 
tinguished above all the nations of Germany for its bravery ever 
since the time of Tacitus, but it was far from numerous. Before 
he invaded Italy, he endeavoured to secure some reenforcements. 
He had formerly been connected with the Saxons, and as his 
previous conduct had won their confidence, twenty thousand of 
their warriors joined his army as soon as he summoned them to 
his standard. He liberated all the Gepidae who had fallen to 
his lot, and enrolled them in his battalions. He also invited se- 
veral other Germanic nations to join him; amongst them were 
the Bavarians, who had recently settled in the country which 
has since borne their name. 

It was not an army, but an entire nation, which descended the 

28 



214 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI. 

Alps of Friuli in the year 568. The exarch Longinus, who had 
succeeded Narses, shut himself up within the walls of Ravenna, 
and offered no other resistance. Pavia, which had been well for- 
tified by the kings of the Ostrogoths, closed its gates, and sus- 
tained a siege of four years. Several other towns, Padua, 
Monzeliee, and Mantua, opposed their isolated forces, but with 
less perseverance. The Lombards advanced slowly into the 
country, but still they advanced^ at their approach, the inhabi- 
tants fled to the fortified towns upon the sea-coast, in the hope 
of being relieved by the Greek fleet, or, at least, of finding a re- 
fuge in the ships, if it became necessary to surrender the place. 
It was known that Alboin had bound himself by an atrocious vow 
to put to the sword all the inhabitants of Pavia, whenever it sur- 
rendered, and the resistance of that place, whick it was impossi- 
ble to relieve, was foreseen to be the prelude to dreadful calami- 
ties. The islands of Venice received the numerous fugitives 
from Venetia, and at their head the patriarch of Aquileia, who 
took up liis abode at Grado: Ravenna opened its gates to the fu- 
gitives from the two banks of the Pof Genoa to those from Li- 
guria^ the inhabitants of La Romagna, between Rimini and An- 
cona, retired to the cities of the Pentapolisj Pisa, Rome, Gaeta, 
Naples, Amalfi, and all the maritime towns of the south of Italy 
were peopled at the same time by crowds of fugitives. The 
Lombards, who were ignorant of the arts used in sieges, could 
only reduce the cities which opposed them by famine, or by 
threats of a general massacre. This manner of attack was in-^ 
fallible for the places in the interior, but it was unsuccessful for 
those which lay upon the coast, all of which remained faithful to 
the Greeks. 

But the Greeks, who were ignorant of the Latin language, in-^ 
different to the welfare of remote countries whose geography 
even they had forgotten, and too much occupied with the wars of 
the Avars, the Persians, and the Arabs, to send succour to a few 
fortresses scattered along a distant shore, contented themselves 
with an honorary allegiance.- They gave up the revenues of eaclv 
town for its defence, and they thought themselves generous: in- 
deed, they were so; for, while they gave nothing, they exacted 
nothing. Each city had preserved its curia, and its municipal 
institutions. As long as the ruling power had been close at hand, 
and perpetually despotic, this curia had been only a means of 
oppression, but it became a means of salvation to cities forgotten 



CHAP. XI.] RISE OF ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 215 

bj their sovereign, and left entirely to their own resources. Their 
constitution was purely republican; the confidence of the citi- 
zens, and the necessity of union, restored them to new vigour 
and dignity. The Greek emperor placed a duke at the head of 
each curia; he found it more economical to give that title to one 
of the citizens of these distant towns, and he generally followed 
the suggestion of the municipal senate in his choice. Thencefor- 
ward this duke or doge was nothing more than a republican ma- 
gistrate, commanding a republican militia j disposing of finances, 
which were formed by almost voluntary contributions, and re- 
viving, in the breasts of the Italians, virtues which had been 
extinct for centuries. 

This happy revolution which was silently taking place in the 
maritime towns, was so little perceived by the Greek writers, 
that they continued to put into the mouths of the free Venetians, 
the declaration, tliat they were the slaves of the empire, and that 
they desired to remain so. But this change, which gradually 
raised the most despicable of men from the depths of baseness 
and of crime to be an example to tlie world, was not confined to 
the mai^itime cities of Italy. 

Throughout the West, the Greek empire possessed scattered 
- points along the coast, which it was too weak to protect,* and it 
appealed to that virtue which it could not know, and to that pa- 
triotism which it could not understand, to defend tliose walls 
which it was itself unable to guard. In Spain, the civil wars 
during the reign of Loewegild, (a. d. 572 — 586,) and of Re- 
casede, (a. d. 586 — 601,) which had been excited by the mutual 
intolerance of the catholics and the Arians, opened a great num- 
ber of maritime places to the Greeks, and established in them 
municipal governments, which afterwards became glorious ex- 
amples for the free cities of Catalonia and Arragon. In Africa, 
the invasions of the Gsetuli and the Moors, by cutting off all 
land communication between the maritime cities, converted them 
into so many little isolated republics; these were shortly after 
destroyed by the great conquest of the Arabs. On the Illyrian 
coast, opposite to Italy, the inhabitants, driven to the cliffs which 
overhang the sea, found refuge against the risings of the Slavo- 
nians, and the inroads of the Bulgarians: — the celebrated league 
of the free cities of Istria and Dalmatia, in which Ragusa ob- 
tained a distinguished place, had enjoyed an independent exist- 
ence of several centuries, before its voluntary union with Ve- 



216 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI* 

nice in 997. The Greeks obtained no footing upon the coast of 
France, but the example of Genoa, Pisa, and Naples, was not 
lost upon the cities of Aries, Marseilles, and Montpellier, which 
traded with themj a circumstance which explains the preserva- 
tion of municipal privileges in the south of France, at a time 
when thej were almost abolished in the north. 

If the Lombards revived the spirit of social liberty, they also 
gave their subjects an example of the individual liberty and sa- 
vage freedom of a nation which is more averse to servitude than 
to public disorder. Alboin did not long remain at the head of 
their armies; after a reign of three years and a half from the 
capture of Pavia, (which he had spared, notwithstanding his 
vow,) he was assassinated by that Rosamunde, whose father he 
had slain, whose people he had destroyed, and whom he had mar- 
ried after he had outraged her honour. In the intoxication of a 
banquet he sent her a cup which he had caused to be made of the 
scull of Cunimund, inlaid with gold, and ordered her to drink 
with her father. Hosamunde dissembled her resentment, but 
she employed that beauty which had been the source of her mis- 
fortunes and her crimes, to corrupt two of the guards of Alboin, 
whom she armed with daggers against the life of her husband. 
After the death of Alboin, at Verona, (a. d. 573,) Clef was 
elected by the suffrages of the Lombards, and raised upon the 
buckler: but, after a reign of eighteen months, he was killed by 
one of his pages, and the nation, which had already extended it- 
self over a great portion of Italy, elected no successor to the 
throne for ten years. In every province where the Lombards 
had formed a settlement, their general assembly sufficed to ad- 
minister justice, and to regulate the affairs of the government; 
it elected dukes as presidents, the number of whom amounted to 
thirty, for the whole of Italy. At length, however, the weaker 
members of the community began to feel the want of an autho- 
rity which should control that of the dukes, and protect the 
rights of the people; whilst the danger of foreign wars, and the 
intrigues of the Greeks, rendered it advisable to name a chief. 
After an interregnum of ten years, Antharic was raised to the 
throne, probably in the year 584; and before the middle of the 
following century, the Lombards had acquired the habit of trans- 
mitting the crown from father to son, though they had not for- 
mally renounced the right of electing their kings. 

The Lombards had scarcely completed the conquest of that 



CHAP. XI.] LOMBARDS. FRANKS. 217 

part of Italy which is called Lombardy after them, when they 
crossed the Provengal Alps to pillage the territory of the kings 
of the Franks, or perhaps with the intention of effecting a settle- 
ment there. 

After the death of Chlothaire I., which happened in 561, the 
Frankic monarchy was governed by his four sons, Charibert, Gon- 
tran, Chilperic, and Siegbert. This was only the second genera- 
tion of the conquerors, for these princes were the grandsons of 
Clovis: yet Gontran, who survived all his brothers, did not die 
till the year 593, exactly a century after the marriage of Clovis 
with Chlotilde. This century had witnessed very important 
changes in the administration and in the opinions of the Franks. 
The warriors, who were all equal when they arrived in Gaul, had 
soon found in the abuse of victory, means of acquiring iniquitous 
possessions, which could not be restrained within the bounds of 
equality. As the soil was cultivated by slaves, or by those classes 
of men, intermediate between slaves and free-born men, who are 
designated in their laws as tributaries, lidi, or fiscal dependants, 
the extent of their estates appeared to them no obstacle to their 
cultivation. The smaller the number of proprietors in proportion 
to the extent of their conquest, the more alarming was their usur- 
pation. They did not, indeed, rob the wealthy Romans of their 
property by a general measure of spoliation, nor did they reduce 
them to slavery: but they constantly resorted to the law of the 
strongest, in a country where there was, in fact, no government — 
no protection for the weak. The poor freeman of Frankic ex- 
traction was not less exposed to this oppression than the Roman. 
The Franks still held their provincial assemblies for the adminis- 
tration of justice, but they were unable to enforce the decrees 
they issued 5 the rich who then first began to be styled great, 
gathered around them a certain number of retainers called leudes, 
by means of grants of land, and with these followers they were 
enabled to drown the voice of justice; to intimidate, to harass, 
and to plunder the freemen, and thus to induce them also to enlist 
in their bands of leudes. Henceforward, the great alone resort- 
ed to the general assemblies of the nation; they alone were known 
to the sovereign; they alone were intrusted with the command of 
the army, when the ban was called out: in a short time they alone 
constituted the nation; he who was rich was sure to become more 
so, and he who was poor was sure to be stripped of the little he 
possessed: in less than a century the turbulent democracy of the 



^218 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XL 

Franks was transformed into a landed aristocracy of the most 
oppressive kind. 

France, properly so called, was at that time divided into four 
provinces, which bore the name of kingdoms^ Austrasia, Neustria, 
Burgundy, and Aquitaine. The Franks inhabited only the two 
former of these districts j they frequently called the inhabitants 
of the southern provinces Romans, although the nobles, the free- 
menj and almost all who bore arms, were nearly all of Burgun- 
dian or Visigothic race: but as they found themselves in a mi- 
nority amongst the Gauls, they had already abandoned the Ger- 
manic languages and adopted the Latin tongue. The assemblies 
of the Frankic people were still held at Metz, or Soissons, the 
capitals of Austrasia and Neustria, with sufficient frequency to 
prevent the people from being crushed under the weight of op- 
pression. It was probably to protect the freemen against their 
more powerful countrymen, that the office of rnord dom, or chief 
judge of murder, was instituted about that time. This func- 
tionary was the supreme minister of justice, and, as his authority 
was superior to that of the tribunals, he was able to inflict punish- 
ment on such as were too powerful to fall under the ordinary 
laws. The resemblance of the Teutonic name, mord dom, to the 
Latin major domus, caused the latter expression to be applied to 
this great officer, and it was afterwards translated Mayor of the 
palace, which confused and obscured the true derivation of the 
word, as well as the nature of the office. The Mord Dom was 
chosen by the people, not by the kingj his duty was to administer 
justice, and not to superintend the royal revenues. His office 
was not perpetual, but he was nominated whenever the people 
stood in need of him, — in times of faction, or during a minority; 
the bracile, or arm of justice, was carried before him, and this 
arm frequently fell upon the heads of criminals of the highest 
rank. 

Germany, which had been united to the confederation of the 
Franks, was also divided into four kingdoms; Franconia, or Ger- 
man France, Allemania, or Swabia, Bavaria, and Thuringia. 
Christianity was only beginning to penetrate into these barbarous 
countries; letters were entirely neglected, and hence their his- 
tory as well as their institutions are totally unknown. It appears, 
however, that each of these great nations marched under the 
command of an hereditary duke, and that the only connexion 
they had with the Franks, was that of making war in common. 



CHAP. XI.] CHILPERIC. TREDEGUNDE. 219 

Twice in the course of the reigns of Chlothaire's sons, these 
Germanic nations were invited into France bj one of the kings, 
and devastated the country wherever they passed. The sons of 
Chlothaire hated each other as cordially, and formed as many 
treacherous designs against each other, as the sons of Clovis had 
done. They found, however, the nation more willing to adopt 
their quarrels as grounds of civil war. 

Of the four sons of Chlothaire, Charibert, who had fixed his 
residence at Paris, and who was the sovereign of Aquitaine^ 
passed his short life in the pursuit of sensual enjoyments, and in 
the grossest debauchery, — a kind of vice then so common among 
kings that it scarcely excited any censure. He had four wives 
at once, two of whom were sistersj one of them, Marcovesa, had 
previously taken the veil, but this was no obstacle to the king. 
Charibert died in 567, and the division of his kingdom of Aqui- 
taine amongst his three brothers was one of the great causes of 
the civil wars of that century. 

Gontran, the second of these kings, who survived all the 
others, (his reign lasted from 561 to 593,) and who had received 
Burgundy for his kingdom, and Orleans for his residence, is 
styled, by Gregory of Tours, in opposition to his brothers, " the 
good king Gontran." His morality, indeed, passed for good: he 
is only known to have had two wives and one mistress, and he 
repudiated the first before he married the second: his temper 
was, moreover, reputed to be a kindly one; for, with the excep- 
tion of his wife's physician, who was hev/n in pieces because he 
was unable to cure her; of his two brothers-in-law, whom he 
caused to be assassinated; and of his bastard brother Gondebald, 
who was slain by treachery; no other act of cruelty is recorded 
of him, than that he razed the town of Cominges to the groundj, 
and massacred all the inhabitants, men, women, and children. 
He was, however, in general, disposed to pardon offences; and 
he displayed incredible forbearance in favour of his sister-in- 
law, Fredegunde, who more than once attempted his life. 

In opposition to the good king Gontran, his third brother, Chil- 
peric, has been called the Nero of France; and, indeed, this bar- 
barian, who aspired to the reputation of a poet, a grammarians, 
and a theologian, who was ambitious of every kind of success 
except that of gaining the affections of his subjects, may, on 
more than one account, be compared to the Roman tyrant.. 
Soissons and Neustria had fallen to his share, and he reigned 



220 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, [cHAP. XI. 

over them from 561 to 584. His habits were more grossly licen- 
tious than those of any other French prince, and the number of 
queens and mistresses he collected in his palace was so great, 
that they were never enumerated. Amongst them, however, 
was the infamous Fredegunde, a worthy consort for such a mon- 
ster. She was of low extraction, and had lived with Chilperic 
many years as his mistress before he married herj at length, 
however, she acquired an absolute ascendency over him, which 
she employed to rid herself of all her rivals. Queen Galsuintha 
was strangled; queen Andovera was executed, after languishing 
for some time in exile; the others were driven from the palace. 
The children of these unfortunate women shared the same fate; 
three grown-up sons of Andovera perished successively by the 
order, or, at least, with the consent, of their father. The fate of 
their sister was even more cruel; Fredegunde abandoned her to 
the brutal lust of her pages, before she was put to death. 

A king who shed the blood of his children with so little re- 
morse, was not likely to spare that of his people. France was 
full of unhappy victims whose eyes Chilperic had caused to be 
torn out, or whose arms he had cut off; assassins, hired by Fre- 
degunde, kept the country in a constant state of alarm; they 
pursued her enemies beyond her own territory, and frequently 
murdered them in the palaces of kings, or in the assemblies of 
the people. The young pages and priests whom she brought up 
in her palace, were the ministers of her vengeance or of her po- 
licy. They committed the most horrible crimes with the per- 
suasion that heaven would be open to them, if they succeeded 
not upon earth, " Go," said she, as she armed them with poi- 
soned knives, *' go; and if you return alive, great shall be the 
honour of yourselves and all your race; if you fall, I will dis- 
tribute abundant alms at the tombs of the saints for the welfare 
of your souls!" The contemporary author who relates these 
words, does not seem to doubt the efficacy of such alms. Chil- 
peric was assassinated in 584; but Fredegunde, who was left a 
widow with a child only four months old, Chlothaire II., suc- 
ceeded in maintaining that infant prince on the throne of Neus- 
tria, and lived till the year 598 in glory and prosperity. 

The fourth son, Siegbert, to whose share Austrasia had fallen, 
with Metz as a residence, was younger than his brothers when 
he mounted the throne, but his conduct was far more decorous, 
as he never had any other wife than the celebrated Brunechilde, 



CHAP. XI.] GONTRAN. 221 

daughter of Athanagild, the king of the Visigoths. The alle- 
giance of the Germanic nations beyond the Rhine was so uncer- 
tain, that, without paying attention to their number or to the ex- 
tent of country which they occupied, they had all been included 
in the share of this prince, although he was the youngest, and, 
consequently, entitled to the smallest portion. But Siegbert 
soon taught the other Franks how formidable these lawless na- 
tions really were. Twice, in his disputes with Chilperic, he led 
them into the heart of France, and twice the banks of the Seine 
and the environs of Paris were devastated with inconceivable 
fury: Siegbert already considered himself master of Neustria, 
and had dismissed his Teutonic auxiliaries, laden with plunder, 
when, in 575, he was assassinated by two pages of Fredegunde. 
His crown passed to a minor, Childebert II. Nine years after- 
wards, as we have already observed, the crown of Neustria 
passed to another minor, Chlothaire II. Charibert had died 
without heirs, and Gontran, who was still alive, was also child- 
less; and, as he was not allowed to be the guardian of his ne- 
phews, the three kingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgun- 
dy, began to be looked upon, even by the Franks, as totally dis- 
tinct. The minority of the kings, and the implacable hostility 
of their fathers, had enabled the nobility to usurp the supreme 
power. Thenceforth the government of Austrasia may be looked 
upon as an aristocracy feebly controlled by the authority of the 
Mord Dom, otherwise called the mayor of the palace. Neustria 
was approaching the same state, but by slower steps. King 
Gontran, who was indolent and capricious in his habits, and who 
lived in perpetual dread of the poniard, was unable to stay the 
progress of aristocratical power even in Burgundy; though he 
was not the. guardian of his nephews, he still thought that he was 
necessary to their defence. One day, just as the priest who wa& 
about to celebrate mass in the cathedral at Paris, had imposed 
silence on the assembled crowd, Gontran, who had come to that 
city a short time after the death of Chilperic, with the intention 
of restoring peace in Neustria, addressed them in the following 
language:-^" Men and women here assembled I I conjure you 
not to break the faith which you have plighted to me, and not to 
cause my death, as you have recently caused that of my brothers: 
I ask only for three years; but three years are absolutely neces- 
rary to enable me to bring up my nephews, whom I look upon as 
my adopted children. Let us beware, and may God forbid that 

a9 



222 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI% 

at my death you should perish together with these children, since 
there no longer remains an individual of my race, who is of an 
age to protect you." Instead of three, " good king Gontran," 
lived ten years longer, and died, at length, a natural deathf but 
it may be doubted whether his life or his death were matters of 
such extreme importance to his family and to the nation as he 
supposed. 

A natural son of Chlothaire, a brother whom Gontran refused 
to acknowledge, took advantage of the death of almost all the 
heads of his family to endeavour to get himself proclaimed king 
by the Franks. During this civil war, Gontran summoned the 
national assembly to meet at Paris. Gregory of Tours, who was, 
doubtless, present on this occasion, gives us an animated descrip- 
tion of all that passed there, which portrays the state of Francer 
far better than a long detail of the high feats performed in war. 
With a view, therefore, to throw light on this period, we shall 
borrow his language, without attem.pting to restrict ourselves to 
the national annals, or the chronological order of events. France 
was making no foreign conquests, and her relations with other 
nations were unchanged^ but an insight into her national assem- 
blies enables us to appreciate, not the events of a day, but the 
spirit of an age. 

"In the year 584, the kingdom of Austrasia," says Gregory 
of Tours, '* deputed to this assembly, in the name of Childebert, 
Egidius, bishop of Rheims, Gontran-Boson, and Siegwald, (the 
chief ministers of the young prince,) who were accompanied by 
a great multitude of Austrasian nobles. As soon a& they had 
come in, the bishop said to king Gontran, ' We render thanks to 
Almighty God, that, after so many toils, he hath restored thee to 
thy provinces, and to thy kingdom.' — *It is, indeed,' ansv/ered 
Gontran, * to Him who is the King of kings, and Lord of lords, 
that thanks are due ! He it is who hath done these things in his 
great mercy, and not thou, who by thy perfidious and perjured 
advice causedst the destruction of my provinces last year; thou, 
whose plighted faith hath never been kept to any man; thou, 
whose snares are spread on every side, more befitting an enemy 
of this realm, than a priest of God.-^ The bishop shook with 
rage at this discourse, but he made no answer^ thereupon another 
deputy got up, and said, * Thy nephew, Childebert, beggeth thee 
to order the cities, which his father possessed, to be restored to^ 
him.' To which the king answered, * I have already told you^ 



CHAP. XI.] NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF PARIS. 223 

that thej were conferred on me bj treaty, and that I will not 
give them up.' Another deputy then said, * Thy nephew de- 
mandeth, that the wicked Fredegunde, who hath killed so many 
kings, be given over to him, that he may avenge the death of his 
father, of his uncle, and of his cousins.' Gontran answered, * I 
have no power to deliver her into his hands, since she is herself 
the mother of a king: moreover, I do not believe in the truth of 
your accusations against her.' 

"After all these, Gontran-Boson approached the king, as if he 
had something to say; but as it was already noised abroad that 
Gondewald had been proclaimed king, Gontran interrupted him, 
and said, * Enemy of this land, and of our realm! why didst 
thou go into the East some years ago to fetch back this Ballomer 
into our states? (for so he always called Gondewald, who pre- 
tended to be his brother. ) Thou art a traitor, and thou hast ne- 
ver kept any one promise thou hast made. Then Gontran-Boson 
replied, * Thou art our lord and our king, seated upon a throne, 
so that no one dares answer thy charges; nevertheless, I protest 
that I am innocent of all thou sayest: and if any one of my own 
rank has accused me of these things covertly, let him come forth 
and speak this day; and thou, king! shall submit this cause 
to the judgment of God, who will decide between us in open 
fight in one field/ 

*' Thereupon every one was silent, and the king rejoined, * It is 
a thing which ought to inflame all your hearts, to drive this stran- 
ger from our frontiers, whose father was nothing better than the 
master of a mill, — ay! his father held the comb, and carded 
wool.' Now, though it is very possible for one man to have two 
trades, a deputy answered the reproaches of the king, and said, 
* What, then, dost thou affirm that this man had two fathers, — 
one a miller, and the other a wool-comber? Take care, O king! 
of what thou sayest; for, except in spiritual matters, we have 
never yet heard that a man can have two fathers at once.' At 
these words many of the deputies laughed aloud, and one of them 
said, 'We take our leave, O king! for since thou wilt not re- 
store the cities which belong to thy nephew, we know that the 
axe which laid thy brothers low is not broken, and will fall upon 
thy head also.' 

"In this scandalous manner the assembly broke up, and the king, 
irritated by their language, ordered the deputies to be pelted with 
horse-dung, straw, rotten hay, and the mud of the streets. They 



224 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI. 

reached their homes with clothes begrimed with filth; the indig- 
nities and insults they received were immense." 

The causes of the animosity which existed between Gontran 
and the deputies of Austrasia, are devoid of interest to us, and 
its consequences terminated with the generation that witnessed 
its commencement; but the relation in which the king stood to 
the nobles, their mutual threats and recriminations, and the in- 
sulting vengeance which the sovereign took, teach us, what the 
titles of the actors incessantly lead us to forget, namely, the real 
character of kings and nobles at that time. We here discover 
what we ought to understand by '' that constitution which has 
stood unchanged for fourteen centuries, whose stability is so 
often held up to our admiration;" just as if the monarchy had 
not been modified by each succeeding generation, and as if there 
was the slightest resemblance between the prerogatives of Gon- 
tran, those of Charlemagne, and those of Louis XIV. 

Childebert II. had arrived at man's estate before the death of 
Gontran; he was endowed witli more energy, and, perhaps, with 
more talent, than had been displayed for a long time by any of 
the race of Clovis, but he also surpassed his predecessors in fe- 
rocity and cruelty. He felt that he was coerced on every side 
by the Austrasian aristocracy, which had silently usurped all the 
influence both of the people and of the crown. The country was 
divided into vast districts, which a few nobles claimed as their 
property; they parcelled out their land amongst such of their 
former companions in arms, the Frankic freemen, as consented 
to take the title of leudes, and to bind themselves by special 
oaths to second all the enterprises of their lord. With their as- 
sistance, these chieftains were sure of always retaining the go- 
vernment of the duchies, although they were nominally in the 
gift of the king or of the people: by law, every office and digni- 
ty was elective, but, in fact, they were all hereditary. Childe- 
bert struggled against this aristocracy, sometimes with the aid of 
his uncle Gontran, but at others he had recourse to the surer ex- 
pedients of the dagger or the axe. Those nobles who thought 
themselves the most secure of his friendship were sometimes 
murdered by his side, in the midst of the gayest festivals : we 
shudder as we read of the ferocious joy with which he excited the 
boisterous merriment of duke Magnorald at a bull -fight, whilst 
the headsman was silently advancing behind him; in the midst 
of his laughter his head was struck oiF, and fell into the circus. 



CHAP. XI.] FREDEGUNDE. BRUNECHILDE. 225 

A great number of Austrasian nobles perished by the orders of 
Childebert II.: at the same time, he took possession of the inhe- 
ritance of his uncle Gontran, and drove the young Chlothaire, 
who was still governed by his mother Fredegunde, to the very 
confines of Neustria. He thought that he was securely seated 
upon his throne; but this can never be the case with a monarch 
who is hated by an entire people. He escaped a great many se- 
cret conspiracies, and repressed as many open revolts; but in 
596 he perished by poison, and his murderers were sufficiently 
wary to escape those inquiries which, indeed, are not very active 
after the death of a man who is generally detested. 

At this epoch, exactly a hundred years after the conversion of 
Clovis, the warlike nation of the Franks was subject to the go- 
vernment of three kings in their minority, and to the regency of 
two ambitious and cruel women, equally hardened in crime. In 
Neustria, Fredegunde was the guardian of Chlothaire, who was 
then scarcely eleven years old. In Austrasia, and in Burgundy, 
Brunechilde was the guardian of Theodebert II. and of Thierry, 
her grandsons' — the one ten, the other nine, years old. Brune- 
childe had probably contributed to inspire her son, Childebert 
II., with that hatred of the aristocracy, and that ardent desire to 
crush it by the most violent means, which had at length brought 
him to the grave. This haughty woman, who was endowed with 
great talents, great knowledge of mankind, and an invincible firm- 
ness of character, had, at various periods of her life, risen above 
calamities which would have crushed a feebler being. She had 
been twice married; first to Siegbert, king of Austrasia, second- 
ly to Merovaeus, (Meerwig) the son of Chilperic, and both her 
husbands had fallen by the dagger of assassins commissioned by 
Fredegunde: she had been the prisoner of her enemies; and she 
lived in the midst of powerful nobles, who had sworn her ruin. 
After the death of her son, she was even more fiercely threatened 
by the dukes of Austrasia, who were angry at not being able to 
resist her ascendency, and indignant at her endeavours to cor- 
rupt the morals of her grandchildren, in order to govern longer 
in their stead; but who, spite of all their menaces and reproaches, 
never failed in the end to acknowledge her remarkable sagacity, 
and to yield to the authority which she exercised over them. 
She had long been possessed of extraordinary beauty; and she 
employed that beauty, (which is ever enhanced by a crown,) to 
its latest period, as a means of attaching to her service the most 



226 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XI. 

zealous of her partisans. But as she was a grandmother, and 
even a great-grandmother, before her death, the common arms of 
women must have become powerless in her hands. " Away from 
us, woman!" said duke Ursis to her^ •' awaj, or the hoofs of 
our steeds shall tread thee to earth." But Brunechilde stood 
her ground: she remained seventeen years in Austrasia after 
having been thus threatened; she continued to govern men who 
refused to acknowledge her even as their equal; she laid out the 
revenues of the kingdom in raising monuments which perpetu- 
ated her renown; — for the roads and towers, which long bore her 
name, might have been taken for Roman works; she vigorously 
seconded the exertions of pope Gregory the Great, in his mis- 
sions for the conversion of Britain, which was then divided 
amongst the Anglo-Saxons; and, if we may believe the letters of 
the pope, it is to her zealous and constant efforts that England 
owes the introduction of Christianity. The country which she 
governed with so much power, soon displayed signs of that pros- 
perity which is always the result of energy united to talent. 

But the dukes of Austrasia could not consent to submit; they 
found means to gain king Theodebert, who was almost imbecile, 
over to their side, as well as the slave whom Brunechilde had 
given him as a mistress, and whom he had subsequently married. 
With his consent, they carried off Brunechilde, in 598, from her 
palace, and left her alone, on foot, and without money, on the 
frontier of Burgundy. The haughty queen arrived at the court 
of the youngest of her grandsons, Thierry II., who reigned at 
Chalons-sur-Saone, as a suppliant. Her ambition was influenced 
by an ardent thirst for vengeance; she wished to govern Burgun- 
dy, but she wished it chiefly that she might turn its arms against 
Austrasia, and destroy her other grandson. Years passed ere 
she had acquired the necessary influence over the mind of Thier- 
ry, and over the character of the people: several assassinations 
were committed, to rid her of such as might have crossed her 
purposes; but she was still obliged patiently to submit to the 
open resistance of the Franks to a civil war, and to consent to 
temporary arrangements which, in her heart, she cursed. After 
an interval of fourteen years, the wished-for moment of ven- 
geance arrived. In 612, Thierry II. declared war against his 
brother, and defeated him in two great battles; Theodebert him- 
self fell into his hands, and he was put to death by the pitiless 
Brunechilde, as well as his infant son Merovseus, whose head 



CHAP. XI.] BRUNECHILDE. ' 227 

was dashed to pieces against a stone. The triumph, however, of 
this barbarous queen over her descendants, was shortly followed 
by her own ruin. Chlothaire II., the son of her mortal enemy, 
had grown to manhood in an obscure district of Neustria, to 
which he had been driven by his more powerful cousins. The 
great lords of Austrasia, and amongst them the ancestors of the 
house of Charlemagne, who began to distinguish themselves in 
their paternal possessions on the banks of the Meuse, were in- 
censed at the thought of falling under the yoke of Brunechilde, 
and they had recourse to Chlothaire II. to effect their delive- 
rance. Thierry II. suddenly died in the midst of his victories^ 
for the terrible science of poisons is the first branch of chemistry 
which is successfully cultivated by barbarous nations. The army 
which Brunechilde collected for the defence of her four great- 
grandsons, to whom she destined the crown, already meditated 
her destruction. The Austrasians, together with the Burgun- 
dians, met the Neustrians between the Marne and the Aisne in 
613^ but, at the first call of the trumpet to battle, the whole 
army of Brunechilde either took to flight, or passed over to the 
enemy's side. The queen herself, with her grand-daughter and 
her great-grandsons, was brought before Chlothaire II., who im- 
mediately condemned to death all the remaining descendants of 
Clovis, so that he himself was the sole survivor of that race. 
Brunechilde underwent various torments for three days, and was 
led about on a camel in the presence of the whole army. Chlo- 
thaire afterwards ordered her to be tied by the hair, by one leg, 
and one arm, to the tail of a wild horse, and abandoned her to 
the kicks of the frantic animal, so that the fields were strewn 
with the lacerated limbs of .the wretched mother of a line of 
kings. 



( 228 ) 



CHAPTER XI 

Obscurity of the History of the seventh Century. — Want of histoi-ical 
Sources. — Estabhshment of the Lombards in Italy. — Their rapid Civiliza- 
tion. — Extent of the Frankic Empire under Chlothaire IF.; its commer- 
cial Prosperity. — Dagobert; his Character, his Cruelties, his Liberahties 
to the Monks. — St. Eloi and St. Ouen. — Succession of thirteen Faineans 
Kings; their premature Deaths. — Struggle between the Nobles and the 
Freemen. — Ebroin. — St. I.eger. — Pepin of Heristal. — Battle of Testry. — 
Change of Dynasty. — Restoration of German Language and Institutions. 
— The East exhausted by religious Wars and Persecutions. — Greek Em- 
perors. — Wars of Justin II. with Chosroes Nushirvan. — Virtues of Tibe- 
rius II. — Talents of Maurice. — His Campaigns against the Avars and the 
Persians; his Assassination. — Heraclius; his extraordinary Character; his 
Successes against Persia. 

There are certain periods in the history of the world, when a 
thick veil appears to overspread the earth; when all authentic 
documents and impartial witnesses disappear, and we are at a 
loss for a clew by which to trace the course of events. "We are 
now arrived at one of these obscure periods — the seventh centu- 
ry; when the historians of the Eastern and Western empires are 
mute; when vast revolutions are in preparation, or drawing near 
to their accomplishment, without our having the means of detect- 
ing their peculiar circumstances, or their progressive steps. The 
night which shrouds in one common darkness the history of the 
Franks or Latins, and that of the Greeks, lasted till the moment 
when a new and unexpected light broke from Arabia; when a 
nation of shepherds and robbers appeared as the depositary of 
letters, after they had been allowed to escape from the guardian- 
ship of every civilized people. 

The principal historical luminary of the West, after the fall 
of the Roman empire, was Gregory, bishop of Tours, who died 
in 595. His ecclesiastical history, carried down to the year 591, 
is the only source from which, notwithstanding his ignorance and 
intolerance, and the want of order in his narrative, we derive 
any knowledge of the manners, the opinions, and the form of 
government of the period of which he treats. After him, ano- 
ther author, far more barbarous, and more concise, whose name 



CHAP. XII.] LOMBARDS. 229 

is believed to have been Fredegaire, continued the history of the 
Franks to the year 641; and he, like his predecessor, has shed a 
feeble light, not only upon Gaul, but upon Germany, Italy, and 
Spain. After Fredegaire, nothing is to be found which deserves 
the name of history, until the time of Charlemagne. A century 
and a half passed away, during which we possess nothing con- 
cerning the whole empire of the West, except dates and conjec- 
tures. 

For the East, in like manner, after the disappearance of the 
great light thrown upon history by the two contemporaries of 
Justinian, — Procopius and Agathias, — our only resource is the 
narrative of Theophylact Simocatta, which is diffuse, without 
being complete; inflated and loaded with superfluous ornaments, 
while it is barren of facts; and, as it ends about the year 603, 
we are then obliged to descend to the chronicles and abstracts 
of Theophanes and Nicephorus, both of whom died after Cliar- 
lemagne, and who resemble each other in being occupied solely 
with chronology, not with the causes or effects of events. 

This long and almost unknown period was not, however, with- 
out importance either in the East or in the West. Italy, under 
the dominion of the Lombards, whose first historian, Paul War- 
nefrid, was contemporary with Charlemagne, slowly recovered 
from its calamities. The Lombard kings, who were at first elec- 
tive, and afterwards hereditary, showed some respect for the li- 
berty of their subjects, whether of Roman or Teutonic origin. 
Their laws, considered as the laws of a barbarous people, were 
wise and equal; their dukes, or provincial rulers, early acquired 
a sentiment of pride and independence, which made them seek 
support in the aftection of their subjects. 

We shall not here set forth the chronology of the one and twen- 
ty Lombard kings, who succeeded each other during the space of 
two hundred and six years— from the conquest of Alboin in 568, 
to the renewal of their monarchy by Charlemagne in 774. Their 
names would soon escape from the memory, and their history is 
not circumstantial enough for us to fix them in our minds by re- 
flections suggested by facts. We only know, that during this 
period, the population of Italy began once more to increase; that 
the race of the conquerors took root and throve in the soil, without 
entirely superseding that of the conquered natives, whose lan- 
guage still prevailed; that the rural districts were cultivated anew, 

30 



230 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XII, 

and towns rebuilt — ^particularly Pavia, the capital of the kingdom, 
and Benevento, the capital of the most powerful duchy of Lom- 
bardy, extending over great part of the kingdom of Naples 5 — ' 
that those arts which sweeten life were once more exercised by 
the inhabitants of Italy; and that the Lombards, who began their 
career of civilization later than the Franks, outstripped them in^ 
it, and soor brought themselves to consider their neigbours as bar- 
barians. 

This period would be still more important in the history of the 
Franks, if it were better known. Ghlothaire II., the son of Chil- 
peric, and the great grandchild of Clovis, had been proclaimed- 
king, in 613, by the whole monarchy. His power extended not 
only over all the Gauls to the Pyrennees, but was acknowledged 
throughout Germany, even by those Saxons whom Charlemagne 
had afterwards so much difficulty in subduing. The kingdom 
of the Franks had become the boundary of the new empire which 
the Avars had established in Transylvania and Hungary, and 
which, at Constantinople, threatened the Greeks with total ruini 
During the fifteen years of his reign over this vast Frankic em- 
pire, (a. d. 613 — 628,) Chlothaire seems to have been little dis- 
turbed by foreign war. He reposed upon his strength, his neigh- 
bours feared him, and the Lombards themselves had consented 
to pay him a tribute. From the number of temples and convents 
with which the piety of Chlothaire and his son covered the king- 
dom, and from the silk, stuffs, and jewellery with which these 
buildings were decorated, it appears that the arts had made con- 
siderable progress in Gaul. Commerce had also acquired fresh 
activity: a desire for the spices of the Indies, and the manufac- 
tures of Greece, was universally felt by those magnates among 
the Franks whose wants were not satisfied by the natural pro- 
ducts of their immense domains. Some of these chiefs undertook 
to carry on trade with arms in their hands, and to establish a com- 
munication between France and Greece by the valley of the 
Danube. The merchants set out from Bavaria, which was at the 
extremity of the empire of the Franks, and advanced to the 
Euxine, passing between the Avars and the Bulgarians, inces- 
santly threatened with pillage, but always ready to defend with 
the sword the convoys which they escorted across those wild 
countries. A Frank merchant, by name Samo, was conspicuous 
for bravery in protecting these caravans: he rendered important 
services to the Venedi, a Slavonic people, who inhabited Bohe- 



CHAP. XII.] DAGOBERT. 231 

miaj they rewarded him by making him their king, in which of- 
fice he continued thirty-five years. 

But notwithstanding the vast extent of the Frankic empire, the 
royal authority was hardly felt out of the presence of the king. 
All the Germanic nations had hereditary dukes, who paid an obe- 
dience, scarcely more than nominal, to Chlothaire, and his suc- 
cessor Dagobert. The southern provinces of Gaul were governed 
by the audiority of their dukes, whom the king undoubtedly pos- 
sessed the right of changing, but whom, in fact, he rarely ven- 
tured to dismiss. It was only in the two provinces of Austrasia 
and Neustria that he felt himself completely king. He resided 
in the latter, generally at Paris; and, to maintain his authority in 
the former, he sent thither the elder of his sons, Dagobert, whom 
he created king in 622, when this young prince was but fifteen 
years of age. Dagobert fixed his residence at Metz, under the 
protection of Arnolf and Pepin, two of the most powerful lords 
of Austrasia beyond the Rhine, and ancestors of the Carlovingian 
line. 

In 628, Chlothaire II. died, and Dagobert succeeded him. 
Chlothaire allotted the kingdom of Aquitaine to a younger son, 
named Charibert, whom he had by another wife; but he did not 
retain it. Dagobert had sole dominion over the empire of the 
Franks from 628 to 638, and exercised a degree of power almost 
equal to that which Charlemagne possessed at a later period. 

Dagobert is described as having qualities which it is impossible 
to reconcile: first, we hear of his extreme moderation, of his 
mildness, of his deference to the authority of Pepin and St. Ar- 
nolf, bishop of Metz; yet, at the very same period, we find him 
causing the assassination of Chrodoald, one of the dukes of Ba- 
varia, who had been powerfully recommended to him by his fa- 
ther. Mention is made of a progress which he undertook through- 
out his kingdom on taking possession of it, and of the manifesta- 
tions of his love of justice and humanity; but let us attend to 
the words of Fredegaire himself. *' From thence he took the 
road for Dijon and St. Jean de Losne, where he abode for some 
days, with a firm resolution to judge the people of his kingdom 
according to justice. Full of this beneficent desire, he yielded 
not his eyes to sleep, nor did he satisfy himself with food; having 
no other object of his thoughts, than the hope that all might re- 
tire from his presence satisfied after having obtained justice. 
The same day, when he was leaving St. Jean de Losne for Ch4- 



232 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. QcHAP. XII. 

Ions, he went into the bath before it was well day; and, at the 
same time, he ordered Brodulf, the uncle of his brother Chari- 
bert, to be put to death." The same historian declares Brodulf 
to have been one of the most estimable men of his kingdom. 

In like manner, we are told of his wisdom, and the purity of 
his morals; but, it is added, that a great change took place in this 
respect within the first year of his reign, when, according to 
Fredegaire, *' he gave himself up to voluptuousness, and had, 
like king Solomon, three queens and a great number of concu- 
bines. The queens were Nantechilde, Wolfegonde, and Ber- 
childe; as for the names of the mistresses, as they were very nu- 
merous, I have shrunk from the fatigue of inserting them in this 
chronicle." 

Two cruel actions of Dagobert, which are not accounted for, 
have left a deeper stain upon his memory than the licentiousness 
of his manners. On the death of his brother, he caused his ne- 
phew, who was still a child, to be killed, lest he should one day 
claim his inheritance. The other is a deed of still greater atro- 
city: in one night he massacred nine thousand Bulgarians to 
whom he had granted hospitality, lest his sheltering them should 
give offence to the Avars, from whose sword these unhappy fugi- 
tives had escaped. 

Dagobert was the benefactor of the abbey of St. Denis, and 
the founder of a great number of rich convents. Of course, his 
piety has been celebrated by the monks: but it was piety accord- 
ing to the interpretation of tlie seventh century, and displayed 
itself in nothing but in the largesses he bestowed on convents. 
This piety had united Dagobert to two saints whom France still 
venerates, though little acquainted with their claims to canoni- 
zation. The first was St. Eloi, the king's jeweller; who, under 
his eyes, and according to his orders, made all the ornaments of 
the church of St. Denis, and who thought himself permitted to 
commit saintly robbery upon the royal treasury, in order to en- 
rich the convent of Solignac, which he himself had founded. 
The second was St. Ouen, formerly referendary of the court, 
afterwards bishop of Rouen. Dagobert lived alternately with 
these two holy men, whose counsels he blindly followed; with 
the monks of St. Denis, in whose choir he sang; and among 
his numerous mistresses. His devotion to St. Denis was so ex- 
clusive, that he several times countenanced the pillage of other 
churches in his states, in order to enrich his favourite saint. 



CHAP. XII.] FAINEANS KINGS. 233 

At the death of Dagobert begins the succession of the Faine- 
arts kings, which lasted for a hundred and fourteen years, (a. d. 
638 — 75%) during which period thirteen sovereigns reigned suc- 
cessively over the whole of France, or over a part of that mo- 
narchy; though only two of them attained to man's estate, and 
not one to the full development of his intellectual powers. The 
great justiciary, the Mord Dom, commonly called the mayor of 
the palace, and whose office had been instituted at a very early 
period in the three monarchies of Austrasia, Neustria, and Bur- 
gundy, could not, like the king, be a minor or an idiot, since he 
was elected by the people. The increase of his power was com- 
mensurate to the incapacity of his nominal chief. The minority 
«f the two sons of Dagobert afforded a favourable opportunity to 
the mayor of making himself known to the nation, and of in- 
creasing his own influence. The inactivity in which the sove- 
reign lived, the corrupting influence of power, and the example 
x)f his predecessors, soon led him into the most shameless ex- 
cesses. There was not a Merovingian king that was not a father 
before the age of fifteen, and decrepit at thirty. This great sti- 
pendiary of the nation, who took no part in the government, ex- 
cept in as much as the uncontrolled disposal of the lands and 
estates of the crown was concerned, lived in a state of continual 
intoxication: he was known to his subjects only by his vices; yet 
the rapidity with which one child succeeded another upon the 
throne, appears to have excited no suspicions in the minds of the 
Franks as to the causes of this constant recurrence of premature 
deaths. 

A new subject of discussion began about this time to divide 
the Frankic nation: the small land-owners, who were called 
Arimans, or freemen, had hitherto allowed the nobles and the 
dukes to usurp their rights. They had for a long while submit- 
ted to be plundered, one by one; and had even aided the cause 
of their oppressors, becoming their leudes or followers, upon a 
promise of mutual assistance. But, about the middle of the se- 
venth century, some more open aggression on the part of the 
nobles, or some more audacious attempts to rob the freemen of 
their estates and of their rights, drove them to combine for their 
common defence. They had already given up the struggle in 
Austrasia, where the family of Charlemagne (which, as it has no 
other name, we shall henceforward style the Carlovingian race) 
was at the head of the high aristocracy. This family had ac- 



234 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. QcHAP. XII* 

quired immense power; and had succeeded in rallying the ma- 
jority of the freemen around its standard, in the capacity of 
leudes: in Neustria, on the contrary, the freemen had preserved 
their independence; they attended the national assemblies, and 
decided the election of the Mord Dom, who seems to have been 
appointed for the express purpose of protecting the lower orders, 
and who was, perhaps, chosen from their ranks, like the Justiza 
of Arragon. In 656, they succeeded in raising Ebroin to this 
important station; a man of great talents and energy, and a de- 
termined foe to the increasing influence of the aristocracy, whose 
sole object, as judge, as general, and as statesman, was to weaken 
the dukes, and to ruin the nobles. 

The two factions soon perceived that it was expedient to ex- 
tend their alliances from one kingdom to the other. The free- 
men of Austrasia, being oppressed by the mayor Wulfoad, who 
was of a ducal family, had recourse to the protection of Ebroin, 
and frequently joined his standard: whilst the dukes of Neustria 
and Burgundy, and the leader of their party, Leger, bishop of 
Autun, intrigued against Ebroin, and kept up a correspondence 
with the nobles of Austrasia. They turned their attention par- 
ticularly towards young Pepin of Heristal, maternal grandson of 
Pepin, the minister of Dagobert, and grandfather of Pepin le 
Bref, king of France. The administration of Ebroin (a. d. 656 
— 689) was marked by frequent wars in both the'kingdoms. Se- 
veral kings were deposed on both sides, although, from their ten- 
der age, they had scarcely taken any other part in passing events 
than the giving them the sanction of their name. The nobility, 
however, were not satisfied with dethroning a sovereign who was 
displeasing to them. Their victories in Austrasia and Neustria 
were followed by regicide. Dagobert II. was attacked by the 
nobles in Austrasia, in 678, and being condemned by a council, 
was put to death. St. Wilfrid, who had offered him hospitality 
in his infancy, was arrested by the army of Austrasians who re- 
turned from accomplishing this revolution; and a bishop who re- 
cognised him, addressed him thus: — "With what rash confi- 
dence do you venture to traverse the land of the Franks, you, 
who are worthy of death for having contributed to send back 
from his exile that king, who was the destroyer of our cities, 
and the contemner of his nobles' counsels; who, like Rehoboam, 
the son of Solomon, oppressed the people with exactions; who 
respected not the churches of God, nor the bishops. — Now he 



GHAP. XII.] CHILDERIC II. 235 

has paid the penalty of his crimesj he is slain, and his body lies 
unburied on the earth." 

The same party, headed by the bishops and nobles, were equal- 
ly merciless to Ciiilderic II. At the period when this Neustrian 
king arrived at the age of twenty-one, and gave himself up to 
that unbridled love of pleasure which was the hereditary propen- 
sity of his race, Ebroin, and Leger, bishop of Autun, who were 
the chiefs of the two parties, were confined in the same convent 
at Luxeuil, the superior of which had compelled them to be re- 
conciled. But, within the walls of a cloister, the^ holy bishop 
did not abandon the cause of his party. He planned a conspira- 
cy, of which his brother Gaerin was the leader. Childeric II. 
was surprised (in 673) as he was hunting in the forest of Livry, 
and, with his wife and infant son, put to death. This seemed to 
confirm the power of the aristocracy. Ebroin, however, who 
had been released at the time of the Revolution, found means to 
reassemble an army of freemen, and surprised the nobles at Pont 
St. Maxence: he defeated them several times, and took prisoner 
almost all those who had borne a part in the death of Childeric 
II., which he avenged by putting them to the torture. St. Leger, 
after being exposed to cruel torments, was preserved alive; his 
biographers assert that all his wounds closed^ instantaneously and 
miraculously, and that, when his lips and tongue were slit, he 
spoke with greater eloquence than before. Deprived of sight, 
and mutilated in all his limbs, St. Leger was already venerated 
as a martyr by the people. Ebroin's anger redoubled, when he 
perceived that all the evil he had inflicted on his enemy redound- 
ed to his gloiy. He resolved to have St. Leger degraded by the 
bishops of France, whom he assembled in council in 678, and 
cited the saint to confess before all the prelates that he was an* 
accomplice in the murder of Childeric II. The holy St. Leger 
neither chose to stain the close of his life by an act of perjury, 
nor to bring upon himself new sufferings by avowing his partici- 
pation in the regicide; he, therefore, made no other answer to alF 
the questions put to him, than that God alone could read the se- 
crets of his heart. The bishops, being able to extort no other* 
answer from him, tore his tunic from top to bottom, as a mark o^ 
degradation, and delivered him up to the count of the palace, 
w^ho ordered him to be beheaded. The commemoration of the- 
martyrdom of the holy regicide is kept on the 2d of October; and* 



236 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XII. 

there are few of the cities of France in which some church has 
not been raised in honour of him. 

After the death of Ebroin, which took place in 681, the 
mayors, who were appointed his successors by the free party, 
possessed neither the same energy nor the same talent. War was 
renewed between Austrasia and Neustria. From the time of the 
murder of Dagobert II., the former had been without a king, and 
had obeyed Pepin of Heristal, who took the title of duke, and 
governed with the assistance of the nobility. A great battle was 
fought between the two nations and the two parties in 687, at 
Testry, in Vermandois. The nobles were triumphant. The 
mayor of the freemen was killed, and their king, Thierry III., 
fell into the hands of the nobles. Pepin, who thought it still ne- 
cessary that there should be the phantom of a king, instead of 
dethroning him, attached him to his own party, and caused hrm 
to be acknowledged in Austrasia, as well at in Neustria, at the 
some time retaining all authority in his own hands. He elevated 
his son to the dignity of mayor of Neustria, and reduced the 
king to the condition of captive of his own subject. 

The great revolution, which transmitted the sovereignty of the 
Franks from the first to the second race, takes its date from the 
battle of Testry. In the year 687, the royal power was vest- 
ed in the second Pepin, although his grandson, the third of the 
name, was the first who assumed the crown, (a. d. 752.) This 
revolution has been erroneously considered as a usurpation on 
the part of the mayors of the palace: it was, on the contrary, 
their defeat^ their old adversaries were victorious, and decorated 
themselves with their title. The Mord Dom, or elective head 
of the freemen, chief magistrate of Neustria, and representative 
of a country in which the Franks had begun to blend with the 
Romans and adopt their language, gave place to the hereditary 
duke of Austrasia, captain of his leudes, or men voluntarily de- 
voted to a service equally hereditary, and requited by grants of 
land. This duke was seconded by all the other dukes who fought 
for aristocracy, and against royalty and the people. His victory 
was signalized by a second triumph of the Teutonic language 
over the Latinj by the re-establishment of diets or assemblies of 
the nation, which were, from that period, held in a far more re- 
gular manner, and gradually got possession of all the rights of 
sovereignty 5 but in which the nobles alone represented the na- 



CHAP. XII.] HISTORY OF THE EAST. Q5T 

tion: lastly, by the almost entire dissolution of the national bond. 
The dukes who had seconded Pepin had in view, not to become 
his subjects, but to reign conjointly with himj accordingly, all 
the nations beyond the Rhine .renounced their obedience to the 
Franks: Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy, governed by their 
several dukes, became, in some sort, foreign provinces 5 and Pe- 
pin, satisfied with leaving either his son or one of his lieutenants 
at Paris to watch the king, transported the actual seat of govern- 
ment to his duchy of Austrasia, and fixed his residence by turns 
at Cologne, and at Heristal, near Liege. 

It was towards the close of the administration of Pepin of He- 
ristal that the Musulmans began to threaten Western Europe. 
They conquered Spain, between the years 711 and 714, and Pe- 
pin died on the 16th of December, 714, after having governed 
France twenty-seven years and a half, from the day of the battle 
of Testry. But, before we attempt to trace the rise and pro- 
gress of the Musulman empire: before we examine how Charles 
Martel, the son of Pepin, saved the West from their dominion, 
we must follow the obscure revolutions of the Eastern empire up 
to the time when her mortal struggle with the invaders began. 

It is not the only disadvantage attending the study of the arid 
period which now engages our attention, that we are forced to 
carry our eyes over the whole world, from its eastern to its west- 
ern bounds, and to pass in review persons who had no relation to 
each other. The brief chronicles to which we are reduced, de- 
void of all historical criticism or judgment, heap up before our 
eyes events of which we cannot see the connexion, and which 
appear rather to contradict than to support each other; becoming, 
of course, difficult to remember, in proportion to their barrenness 
and obscurity. 

The history of the East, during the five reigns of Justin 11., 
Tiberius II., Maurice, Phocas, and Heraclius, (a. d. 567 — 642,) 
presents us rather with the phantoms of a bad dream than with 
a train of real events. The three former, it is true, offer a con- 
trast in which we ought to be accustomed, — that of sovereigns 
virtuous, or represented as being so, and a miserable people. It 
is, indeed, generally thus that the historians of monarchies have 
performed their tasks. But the tyranny of Phocas, the defeats 
and afterwards the victories of Heraclius, have no resemblance 
to any course of events with which we are acquainted, and afford 
no internal explanation. In a war, of which the details are 

31 



238 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XII. 

wholly unknown to us, the Persians, under the orders of Chos- 
roes II., conquered all the Asian provinces of the Eastern em- 
pire. Heraclius, in his turn, conquered the whole of Persia, up 
to the frontiers of India; and, after expeditions, the narratives 
of which wear the air of fables, the two empires, equally ex- 
hausted, were unable to contend with a new enemy, whose ex- 
istence they had not even suspected. 

Though reduced to conjecture as to the origin of these sud- 
den revolutions, we can, at least, discover, that a great cause of 
weakness had arisen in the Eastern empire, along with the new 
systems of religious belief, and the unrelenting persecutions they 
engendered. The minds of men became irritated against each 
other, and ill-disposed towards their government. The oppressed 
sects not only refused to defend their country, — they intrigued 
with their country's enemies, and delivered into their hands the 
strongest and richest provinces of the empire. In the discus- 
sions on the mysteries of the Christian faith must be sought the 
key to the Persian and Musulman conquests. 

The groundwork of the new revolutions which broke out at 
the end of the sixth century was laid in the reign of Justinian. 
The ancient dispute between the catholics and the Arians con- 
cerning the divinity of Jesus Christ had been succeeded by others 
far more frivolous and unintelligible, more foreign to all human 
actions, and to the influence of faith upon conduct, — those con- 
cerning the union of the two natures and two wills in the person 
of the Saviour. 

It was not without reason that the question, whether the Re- 
deemer was God, or whether he was a created being, was re- 
garded as fundamental in the Christian religion. For, according 
to the explanation given of this mystery, one sect reproached the 
other with refusing, if not to Deity itself, certainly to one of its 
manifestations, the worship which is its due: while the opposing 
sect accused its adversaries of violating the first of the command- 
ments, the very basis of religion, by adoring him who had ex- 
pressly taught them to worship the Father only, the King of 
kings. But, though the dogma of the divinity of Christ had 
prevailed in the catholic church, the explanation of the incom- 
prehensible union of the Deity with man was absolutely null as 
to its consequences: it might be enounced in words, but human 
reason was unable to grasp it; still less could it have any effect 
in guiding the actions of men. 



CHAP. XII.] THEOLOGICAL DISSENSIONS. 239 

Nevertheless, two expianations of this mystery had been 
brought forward; the one, that of the Monophy sites, represented 
the Deity as being the soul which animated the human body of Je- 
sus Christ. According to this system, the soul of the Saviour pos- 
sessed but one nature, and that divine; his body, also, was of one 
nature, and that human. This system, which did not escape the 
charge of heresy, had been embraced by Justinian, and, more 
warmly still by his wife Theodora, in whom licentiousness and 
cruelty had not extinguished theological zeal. The bishops, the 
monks, and the laity, who refused to subscribe to it, were ex- 
posed to a bloody persecution. The orthodox system, on the 
contrary, acknowledged in Jesus Christ the union of two com- 
plete natures; that is, of the human soul and human body of 
Jesus the son of Mary, with the divine soul and divine body of 
the Christ, one of the three persons of the Deity. These two 
complete and distinct beings were, however, so intimately united, 
that nothing could be attributed to the Man, which was not, at 
the same time, attributed to the God. 

From this explanation, arose a new dispute about words. It 
was asked, whether this twofold Being was animated by a single 
will; the divine soul prevailing so completely over the human, 
as undividedly to govern the actions of Christ. In the opinion 
of the Monothelites it was so. This was declared heretical, and 
the orthodox dogma was established, that the human soul of Jesus 
had a full and entire will, but that it remained in perpetual con- 
formity to the full and entire will of the divine soul of Christ. 

With the utmost stretch of attention, we are scarcely able to 
seize these subtle distinctions, which aim at setting in opposition 
unknown causes, whose effects are always the same. The exa- 
mination of them fatigues the reason, and appears a sort of blas- 
phemy against that inscrutable Being, who is thus submitted to 
a kind of moral dissection. With more difficulty still should we 
pursue the different shades of these opinions, and all the various 
sects to which they gave rise. But the influence of these subtle 
questions was fatal to the empire: every sect persecuted in its 
turn, and the orthodox,-— that is to say, the victorious — abused, 
more cruelly than the others, the power which they were longer 
able to retain. The first dignitaries of the church were expelled 
from their seats; many perished in exile, many in prison, many 
were even sentenced to death. Those who held the forbidden 
opinions were denied the liberty of worship; while the property 
of the condemned churches was seized, and thousands of monks, 



240 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XII. 

fighting with staves and stones, excited tumults in which rivers 
of blood was shed. Large towns were given up to pillage, and 
to all the outrages of a brutal soldiery; and all this as a punish- 
ment for an attachment to words rather than to ideas. At the end 
of the sixth century, the greater part of the empire, especially 
the eastern, longed for a foreign deliverer, — ^even for the yoke of 
a heathen or a magian, so that they might escape fi om the intole- 
rance of the orthodox party and of the emperors. 

The Nestorians, who carried farther than the orthodox them- 
selves the separation between the two natures 5 who placed in 
stronger opposition than the catholics the Man Jesus and the God 
Christ, were the first objects of persecution: they completely 
abandoned the empire, and several hundred thousands of the sub- 
jects of Justinian emigrated into Persia, carrying with them arts 
and manufactures, and a knowledge of Roman tactics and en- 
gines of war. The conquests of Chosroes were seconded by their 
arms, and by the treachery of their secret adherents, who deli- 
vered up to the enemy several of the fortresses of Asia. 

The Eutychians, the most zealous of the Monophysites, who, 
in order to maintain the unity of Christ's nature, denied that his 
divine soul had been invested with a human body, were crushed 
by persecution. They have survived only in Armenia, where 
their church flourishes to this day: but this heresy destroyed the 
ancient attachment of the Armenians to the Greeks, and produced 
in these old allies of the empire an implacable hatred, which has 
also been perpetuated. A modified sect of Monophysites, the 
Jacobites, sought refuge in Persia, in Arabia, and in Upper Egypt. 
They, too, united with the enemies of their country. In the 
mountains of Lebanon, the Monothelites, or those who admit only 
one will in Christ, raised the standard of revolt. These are still 
known by the name of Maronites. The Monophysites, who were 
oppressed and destroyed in the rest of the empire, raised an invin- 
cible resistance in Egypt, where the whole mass of the people 
shared their opinions. But these people, persecuted, stripped, 
and doomed to see the dignities of their church, their own pos- 
sessions, and all their civil rights, torn from them, gave up at 
once the language of the Greeks, and their adherence to its church. 
Then arose the Coptic sect, and its independent church, which 
spread over Abyssinia and Nubia. They seconded with all their 
might the arms of Chosroes; and when he, in his turn, was con- 
quered, they implored the aid of the Musulmans. 

Such was the state of the East, and such were the only passion? 



CHAP. XII.] JUSTIN II. TIRERIUS.^ 241 

which seemed to agitate the people, during the five reigns which 
filled the interval from the death of Justinian, in 567, to the con- 
quests of the Musulmans, in 632. We shall now give a succinct 
account of these five reigns, on which our scanty materials would 
not permit us to enlarge, even if we desired it. 

The sceptre of Justinian had been transmitted, in 56T, to his 
nephew Justin II., a prince of a mild and benevolent disposition, 
but weak: he saw the errors of his uncle's administration, and 
promised to remedy them; but he was constantly confined to his 
palace by bodily infirmity, and surrounded by women and eu- 
nuchs. Counsellors like these gave to his government a charac- 
ter of intrigue, of feebleness, of distrust. During his reign, Italy 
was lost by the conquest of the Lombards. The Avars, being 
driven by the aboriginal Turks from the neighbourhood of Thi- 
bet, and becoming conquerors as soon as they had passed from 
Asia into Europe, had founded their empire in the valley of the 
Danube, nearly on the same spot which Attila had formerly 
chosen as the seat of his government. From thence they extend- 
ed their devastations throughout the Illyrian peninsula. To- 
wards the end of the reign of the great Chosroes Nushirvan, the 
Persians carried their ravages to the very outskirts of Antioch, 
and reduced to ashes the city of Apamea. At the end of his 
reign, however, Justin II. realized the hopes which he had ex- 
cited at its commencement. He chose a successor, not in his 
own family, but in his people. Finding in the captain of his 
guards, Tiberius, the most virtuous, brave, and humane of his 
subjects, he raised him to the crown in December, 574, and re- 
signed to him the reins of government, without any attempt, 
during the four years which he survived this act of abdication, to 
recover the power he had resigned. 

It is supposed that the empress Sophia, wife of Justin II., had 
some influence upon the choice of her husband. Tiberius was 
not only the bravest, but the handsomest of the courtiers. It was 
not known that he was married; and though Justin, as he placed 
him on the throne, said, "' Reverence the empress Sophia as your 
mother," Sophia is thought to have indulged a hope that she 
should attach him to herself by a different tie, and should bestow 
her hand, as well as a crown, upon the new emperor. But Ti- 
berius now brought forward his wife Anastasia, whose existence 
had been hitherto concealed. From this time he strove, by his 
respectful attentions and filial affection to the empress, to make 
her forget the mortification she had endured. He found excuses 



242 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XII. 

for her resentment, and pardoned even the conspiracies into which 
her irritation led her^ and he granted, — what was then without 
example in the history of the empire, — a complete amnesty to all 
tliose who had taken up arms and proclaimed another emperor, 
as well as to the rival whom they had decorated with the purple. 
The reign of Tiberius is the first, since the conversion of Con- 
stantino, which gives us an idea of Christian virtues adorning the 
throne: — mildness, moderation, patience, charity. — Unhappily, 
this excellent prince survived Justin only four years: but, find- 
ing himself attacked by a mortal disease, he chose, in the same 
way in which he had been chosen, — not one of his family, but 
the man he thought most worthy, to inherit the supreme power. 
The successor and adopted son of Tiberius was Maurice, (a. d. 
582 — 602,) a general who had commanded the army in the war 
against the Persians. He was then forty-three years of age^ 
and, though his virtue was less pure than that of his predecessor, 
and his character had some taint of pride, of cruelty, of weak- 
ness, and of avarice, he was, nevertheless, worthy of the prefe- 
rence which had been given to him. 

Maurice, who owed his elevation to his military character, and 
who had so deeply studied the art of war as to write a treatise 
upon tactics which has come down to our own time, did not at- 
tempt to lead his armies in person^ so completely had the effe- 
minate life of Constantinople rendered the profession of the sol- 
dier incompatible with the dignity of the sovereign. He opposed 
but a feeble resistance to the Lombards, and was satisfied with 
merely strengthening the garrisons in the small number of towns 
which he still held in Italy. His most formidable enemy, there- 
fore, was Baian, the Khan of the Avars, (a. d. 570 — 600,) who 
seemed to have taken Attila for his model, and occupied his 
country, if not his palace. In the vast plains of Bulgaria, of 
Wallachia, and Pannonia, where he prevented all cultivation of 
the earth, it was almost impossible for a regular army to check 
or chastise the ravages of his wandering troops: they penetrated 
with impunity into the richest provinces of the empire, and al- 
most every year carried terror to the walls of Constantinople^ 
plundering, in their course, the treasures of the Greeks, and 
carrying off thousands of captives. After having insolently bar- 
tered peace for a tribute, and insulted the messengers of the em- 
peror in his own country, — insulted Constantinople through the 
lips of her own ambassadors,' — Baian made it his sport to vio- 
late the treaties which he had sworn to keep. 



CHAP. XII.] MAURICE. 243 

The relations of Maurice with the Persian empire were more 
advantageous. The great Chosroes Nushirvan had died in 579, 
having lived upwards of eighty years. His son, Hormouz, who 
succeeded him, (a. d. 579 — 590,) rendered himself odious by 
every vice which could exhaust the patience even of orientals. 
His avarice disgusted the troops; his caprice degraded the sa- 
traps of Persia, and his pretended justice had immolated, as he 
himself boasted, thirteen thousand victims. An insurrection 
broke out against him in the principal provinces of Persia: Mau- 
rice seconded it by sending a Roman army into Mesopotamia and 
Assyria; the Turks of Thibet advanced at the same time into 
Khorasan and Bactriana; and the monarchy of the Persians 
seemed already on the brink of ruin. Bahram, or Varanes, a 
general who had distinguished himself, under Nushirvan, by his 
skill and valour, saved the state by disobeying the orders of Hor- 
mouz. Alone, he undertook the wars against the Turks and 
against the Romans: he conquered the former, and, although he 
was less fortunate in his enterprise against the latter, he still pre- 
served his influence over the Persians. Hormouz having sent 
him an insulting message, implying that his services were no 
longer wanted, he raised the standard of revolt, took his sove- 
reign prisoner, and exhibited to Persia the unwonted sight of a 
public trial, at which the captive son of Nushirvan pleaded his 
own cause before the nobles of the land. The unfortunate prince 
was, by their orders, deposed, blinded, and cast into prison, where 
he was strangled a short time afterwards by a personal enemy. 
(a. d. 590.) 

One party among the Persians wished to transmit the crown to 
Chosroes II., son of Hormouz; but Bahram refused to recognise 
him, and he was obliged to flee at the peril of his life, and to 
take refuge with the Romans. Maurice received the fugitive in 
a manner no less politic than generous, and spared him the fa- 
tigue and humiliation of a journey to Constantinople. He col- 
lected a considerable army on the frontiers of Armenia and Sy- 
ria, the command of which he intrusted to Narses, a general of 
Persian origin, who is not to be confounded with the conqueror 
of Italy. The popular passions of the Persians were already 
kindled for a counter-revolution; the magi had declared them- 
selves against Bahram; an army of the partisans of Chosroes had 
joined that of the Romans, which advanced to Zab on the fron- 
tiers of Media; and the standards of the declining empire pene- 



244 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. XIi. 

trated into regions which the Roman eagles had never beheld, 
either during the republic, or the reign of Trajan. Bahram was 
conquered in two battles, and perished in the eastern extremity 
of Persia: Chosroes was seated upon the throne, and, according 
to the custom of oriental despots, he cemented his restoration 
with the blood of numerous victims. He, however, still retained 
the army of auxiliaries with which Maurice had furnished him. 
He assumed the title of adopted son of the Roman emperor; he 
restored several contested fortresses to Maurice; he granted to 
the Christians of Persia that liberty of conscience which the magi 
had always refused them; and the Greeks exulted in the part 
they had taken in this revolution, as one of the most fortunate 
occurrences in their history. 

They soon perceived, however, that a solid alliance must be 
based upon the friendship of nations, not merely on that of sove- 
reigns. In the month of October, 602, Maurice attempted to 
reduce the pay of his soldiers, and to make them winter in the 
country of the Avars; a sedition instantly broke out, and the in- 
furiated soldiers invested with the purple one of their centu- 
rions, named Phocas, who was only distinguished by the violence 
of his imprecations against the emperor. The monarch still 
hoped to defend himself in Constantinople: but the people were 
no less exasperated at his parsimony than the army, and received 
him with a shower of stones. A monk ran through the streets 
sword in hand, denouncing him as the object of the wrath of 
God. Maurice, however, was accused of no heresy; and, in an 
age where the affairs of the church were mingled with those of 
the state, he alone seems to have kept aloof from ecclesiastical 
quarrels. He fled to Chalcedonia, where he was soon taken by 
the officers of Phocas, who had just entered Constantinople in 
triumph. His five sons were butchered before his eyes: he him- 
self perished the last; and the six heads were exposed to the in- 
sults of the populace in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. A 
few months afterwards, the widow of Maurice and his three 
daughters were slaughtered in the same manner: but this was 
only the prelude to the execrable tyranny which Phocas was 
about to exercise over the empire for eight years, (a. d. G02 — 
610,) during a reign not less remarkable for atrocity than those 
of Nero and Caligula. 

Chosroes might, possibly, consider himself bound in gratitude 
to avenge the prince who had restored him to his throne. Be 



CHAP. XII.] PERSIAN WAR. 245 

that as it may, his policy eagerly seized this pretext for declaring 
War on the Romans,* and the most opulent cities of the empire 
were laid waste by the sword of the Persians, to expiate a crime 
in which they had in nowise participated. Chosroes II. employed 
several campaigns in rendering himself master of the border 
towns; and, as long as Phocas reigned, he did not pass the limits 
of the Euphrates. But Phocas himself fell; the crime whicli 
Chosroes aifected to avenge, met its punishment: Heraclius, son 
of the exarch of Carthage, sailed with an African fleet, and was 
received in the port of Constantinople on the 5th of October, 
610, with the title of Augustus. Phocas was given over to the 
most cruel tortures, and was afterwards beheaded; but the new 
emperor in vain demanded of the Persian monarch a restoration 
of that peace between the two empires, which he had now no just 
cause for withholding. 

It was precisely at this period that Chosroes, leaving the 
shores of the Euphrates, undertook the conquest of the Roman 
empire; whilst Heraclius, whose long reign, (a. d. 610 — 642,) we 
are only acquainted with through imperfect documents, passed 
twelve years in a state of inactivity and depression, which forms 
a strange contrast with the brilliant expeditions by which he af- 
terwards distinguished himself. In 611, Chosroes occupied the 
most important cities of Syria,^ — Hierapolis, Chalcis, Bersea, and 
Aleppo. He took Antioch, the capital of the East; Caesarea, 
the capital of Cappadocia, fell shortly afterwards. Chosroes de- 
voted several campaigns to the conquest of Roman Asia; but 
history does not furnish us with the details of any battle offered 
to check his progress, nor of any obstinate siege, nor with the 
name of any Roman general, distinguished even by his reverses. 
In 614, Palestine was invaded by the Persian armies; Jerusalem 
opened its gates; the churches were pillaged, 90,000 Christians 
were massacred, and the fire of the magi succeeded to the wor- 
ship which had been offered on the altars of the true God. In 
616, Egypt was also conquered: the Persians advanced into the 
deserts of Libya, and destroyed the remains of the ancient Greek 
colony of Cyrene, in the neighbourhood of Tripoli. During the 
same year, another army crossed Asia Minor, to Chalcedonia, 
which yielded after a long siege; and a Persian army maintained 
its position for ten years, within sight of Constantinople, on the 
Bosphorus of Thrace. The whole empire seemed to be reduced 
within the walls of the capital; for, about the same time, the 



246 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XK., 

Avars recommenced their ravages with more ferocity than ever,- 
and occupied or laid waste the whole European continent, down- 
to the long wall, which, at a distance of only thirty miles fronv 
Constantinople, separated that extremity of Thrace from the: 
mainland. Certain maritime towns, sprinkled at vast distances 
over all the coasts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, still recognised 
the nominal authority of the emperors; but their own situation, 
was so precarious, that they could neither furnish money nor 
troops for distant expeditions. The final overthrow of the throne. 
of Heraclius seemed only to be deferred for a few years. 

Then it was that the man, whose effemlnale habits and de- 
pressed spirits had hitherto inspired nothing but contempt, all at 
once displayed the vigour of a young soldier, the energy of a 
hero, and the talents of a conqueror. The meagre chronicles 
which relate the annals of the reign of Heraclius, neither ex- 
plain his successes, nor throw light on his previous reverses: 
they neither tell us why he seemed to slumber for twelve years 
upon a throne which was crumbling to dust beneath him, nor 
why he suddenly awoke, in all the greatness of his energy, to 
crush the Persians in the course of six years, (a. d, 622 — 627;) 
nor how he came to relapse into the same apathy, and to lose, by 
the arms of the Musulmans, during the last fourteen years of his 
reign, all that he had before regained, (a. d. 628 — 642.) 

Reduced, as Ave are, to a merely conjectural solution of this 
historical problem, we are led to imagine that the reverses of the 
empire were owing to the universal discontent of its subjects; ta 
the prevalence of religious animosities, and to a resentment for 
unjust persecution, which induced the heretics of every province 
to desire a bold avenger even more than a good king. But aftec 
the Monophy sites, the Monothelltes, the Eutychians, the Nesto- 
rians, the Jacobites, and the Maronites, had gratified their hatred 
of the church and of tlie state by delivering their fortresses and 
their country into the hands of the magi, the ruin of their for- 
mer enemy soon ceased to console them for their present oppres- 
sion. They regretted that national independence and that coun- 
try which they had lost; they appealed to that Heraclius whom 
they had betrayed. The emperor had been destined by nature 
for the part of a great man; and, although the pomp of royalty, 
the influence of courtiers, eunuchs, and women, had lulled him 
in the lap of luxury, he readily perceived the real weakness of 
an empire whose resources were weakened by conquest. He 



tJHAP. XII.] HERACLIUS. 247 

saw that it was impossible for the Persian armies, which were 
"dispersed over the immense extent of the Roman provinces, to 
arrive in time to succour each other? that they must be in con- 
stant dread of a rebellion? and that the troops would not dare 
to leave their remote quarters to support the central forces. In- 
stead of attacking the Persian army, which lay before his eyes 
in Chalcedonia, at the very gates of his capital, he embarked 
with all the soldiers he could muster, and landed in Cilicia, at 
the angle which Asia Minor forms with Syria. Ten years of 
magian oppression had taught the inhabitants to regret the sway 
of the Eastern empire. Heraclius re-enforced his army with 
such of the natives as had courage to shake off the yoke. In- 
stead of seeking to meet the Persians, he attempted to cut them 
off in their rear; and, with a degree of skill and boldness which 
deserves to be better known, he long avoided them, and ravaged 
the very countries which they had left behind them. Whilst 
the whole empire of the East was occupied by the Persians, he 
led the Roman armies into the heart of Persia: he even pene- 
trated into regions of whose existence the Greeks had hitherto 
been ignorant, and where no European conqueror had ever set 
foot. After having laid waste the shores of the Caspian Sea, he 
successively attacked, took, and burned, the several capitals of 
Chosroes, even as far as Ispahan: he extinguished the eternal 
fire of the magi? he loaded his troops with an enormous booty? 
and he retaliated on Persia the same disasters which Chosroes 
had, for ten years, inflicted upon the empire. 

Heraclius did not cease to offer peace, even in the midst of 
this career of destruction: while the haughty monarch as con- 
stantly rejected it in the midst of his disasters and defeats. The 
Persians at length refused to submit to the extreme sufferings 
which were the consequences of his obstinacy and of his weak- 
ness. An insurrection broke out against the king on the 25th of 
February, 628, and Chosroes was assassinated, with eighteen of 
his sons. One only of his offspring, Siroes, was allowed to live, 
and to occupy his father's throne. Peace was restored between 
Constantinople and Persia? and the ancient boundaries of the 
two empires on the Euphrates were recognised by both parties. 
But the whole of Asia had been devastated by this double inva- 
sion : and the conqueror, who, mean time, was gathering strength 
in Arabia, met with but slight resistance, when, in the following 
year, (629,) he began to inundate the exhausted land with the 
victorious torrent of the Musulman armies. 



( 248 ) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Physical Geography of Arabia. — Yemen. — Kepublics of the Red Sea. — 
Arab Character, Institutions, Poetiy, and ReHgion. — Worship of the Kaa- 
ba at Mecca. — Birth of Mahommed. — His Marriage. — His Rehgious stu- 
dies. — Publication of the Koran. — Character of his Religion. — His Public 
Preaching. — His early Disciples. — Irritation of the Inhabitants of Mecca. 
— Flight of Mahommed to Medina; Hegira, or Era of the Musulman Reli- 
gion. — Commencement of his Reign. — His military Talents. — Conquest 
of Mecca. — Conquest of the rest of Arabia. — Declaration of War with 
the Empire. — Decline of Mahommed's Health. — His last Words. — His 
Death, (a. d. 569— 632.) 

The great peninsula of Arabia, which extends from the Per- 
sian Gulf to the Red Sea, and from the frontiers of Syria to the 
shores of the Southern Ocean, forms a distinct world, in which 
man and beast, the heavens and the earth, wear a peculiar as- 
pect, and are governed by peculiar laws:- — every thing recalls 
the eternal independence of an autochthonous people: the an- 
cient traditions are purely national, and a civilization of a cha- 
racter entirely peculiar, has been attained without any impulse or 
assistance from foreign nations. 

The extent of Arabia is nearly four times that of France; but 
this vast continent, through which no river takes its course; in 
which no mountain raises its head high enough to collect the 
clouds, or to disperse them in rain, or to garner up the snows for 
the refreshment of these burning plains, is scorched with perpe- 
tual drought. The very earth is parched; scantily clothed with 
a short-lived vegetation during the rainy season, it is reduced to 
dust as soon as the sun regains his unclouded power. The 
winds, which sweep across its boundless plains, bear along moun- 
tains of sand, which constantly threaten to swallow up the works 
of man, and often bury the traveller in a living grave. A few 
springs, which the industry of man, or the instinct of animals 
has discovered, and whose waters have been carefully collected 
and sheltered in cisterns or deep wells by that antique charity, 
that disinterested benevolence, which prompts an individual to 
labour for an unknown posterity, mark, at long intervals, the 
spots where the life of man may be preserved. They are as 
distant as the cities of Europe; and, in the itinerary of the va- 
rious caravans, more than half the daily stations are without wa- 



CHAP. XIII.] ARABIA. 249 

ter. Besides these cisterns, however, other springs which have 
escaped the eye of man, or have not been sheltered bj his la- 
bours, preserve their waters for the wild beasts of the desert; 
for the iions and tigers whose thirst is more frequently quenched 
with blood; and for the antelopes which flees at their approach. 

The mountains, seared and stripped by the fervour of the sun 
and the violence of the wdnds, here and there rear their naked 
heads; but if any of them are lofty enough to attract the clouds 
and to draw down refreshing showers, or if any sl-ender rivulet 
trickles down its barren sides before it loses itself in the boundless 
sands, a luxuriant fertility marks its whole tract: there, the power 
of a burning sun vivifies what it elsewhere destroys; an island 
of verdure arises in the midst of the desert; groves of palms cover 
the sacred source; all the lower animals assemble there, unawed 
by man, whose empire appears to them less formidable than that 
of the desert from which they have fled, and they submit to his 
control with a readiness unknown in other climes. These moun- 
tains, these living springs, these oases, are scattered but rarely 
over the vast surface of Arabia; but along the coasts of the Red 
Sea some spots are marked by more abundant waters, and here 
flourishing cities have arisen from the earliest antiquity; whilst, 
at the extremity of the peninsula, on the shores of the ocean, the 
kingdom of Yemen, and the part called by Europeans Arabia the 
Happy, are watered by copious streams, carefully cultivated, co- 
vered with coffee trees, and spice and incense bearing shrubs, 
whose perfumes are said to be wafted out to sea, and to salute 
the approaching mariner. 

The race of men who inhabit this region, so unlike every other, 
are gifted by nature with the vigour and endurance necessary 
to triumph over the obstacles and the evils with w^hich they have 
to struggle. Muscular, agile, sober, patient, the Arab, like his 
faithful companiotf the camel, can endure thirst and hunger: a 
few dates, or a little ground barley, which he steeps with water 
in his hand, sufiice for his nourishment. Fresh and pure water 
is for him so rare, it seems to him so great a bounty of Heaven, 
that he thinks not of ardent liquors. His faculties are employed 
in becoming thoroughly acquainted with the region he has to sub- 
jugate; and the pathless desert, the moving columns of sand, the 
parching and poisonous breath of the Samum, strike him neither 
with amazement nor with dread. He boldly traverses the desert 
in search of whatever riches are to be found in it; he subdues all 



250 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

the animals that dwell in it; or rather, he shares with them, as 
friends whatever can be wrested from a niggard nature. He 
guides their intelligence to collect and to preserve the scanty food 
which Arabia produces; and while he profits by their labours, he 
preserves the nobleness of their character. The horse lives in 
the midst of his children; his intelligence is constantly called 
forth by the society of man, and he obeys rather from affection 
than from fear. The camel lends him his strength, and his pa- 
tience, and enables him to carry on an active commerce in a 
country which nature seemed to have cut off from all communi- 
cation with the rest of the world. 

It is only by the triumph of industry and of courage that man 
can exist in Arabia, in a constant struggle with nature; he could 
not exist if he had likewise to struggle against despotism. The 
Arab has always been free, he will always be free; for, with him, 
the loss of liberty would be almost immediately followed by the 
loss of existence. How could the maintenance of kings or of ar- 
mies be extracted out of the labour which scarcely suffices to sup- 
ply himself witli the means of subsistence? The inhabitant of 
Arabia Felix alone has not received from nature this stern secu- 
rity for freedom. In Yemen there are absolute kings. Indeed, 
this country has more than once been exposed to foreign con- 
quest; but the cities on the banks of the Red Sea are republics, 
and the Arab of the desert knows no other government than the 
patriarchal one. The scheik, the patriarch of the tribe, is regard- 
ed as father; all the members of it call themselves his children; 
a figure of speech adopted by other governments, but in Arabia 
alone, little removed from reality. The scheik counsels his chil- 
dren, he does not command them; the resolutions of the tribe are 
formed in the assembly of elders; and he who dissents from them, 
turns his horse's head to the desert, and goes on his solitary way. 
It is but here and there that a spot of Arabia is susceptible of 
cultivation. There alone can territorial property exist. Else- 
where the earth, like the air, belongs alike to all, and the fruits 
which she bears without culture are common to all. The fre- 
quent conflicts of the Bedouin, who acknowledges no territorial 
property, with those who portioned out fields, enclosed them and 
claimed them as their own, have accustomed the former to pay lit- 
tle respect to the laws of property in general. Indeed, he acknow- 
ledges none but those which govern his tribe; the property of his 
brother, or that for which his brother has pledged liis word, is alone 



CHAP. XIII.] ARAB CHARACTER. 251 

sacred in his eyes: all other he regards as lawful prey 5 and he 
exercises the profession of a robber without injury to his self-re- 
spect, or to his own sense of morality or of law. He assails and 
partitions whatever foreign property comes within his reach. 
With him the^ords stranger and enemy are synonymous, unless 
the stranger have acquired the claims of a guest, have eaten salt 
at his table, or have come to seat himself with generous confi- 
dence at his hearth. Then the person of the stranger becomes 
sacred in his eyes; he will share his last morsel of bread, his last 
cup of water with him, and will defend him to the last moment 
of his own life. 

Among other nations nobility is only the transmission of an- 
cient wealth and power; but the Bedouin has none but moveable 
wealth, which he seldom long preserves; he scorns to obey, and 
does not seek to command; if, then, he respects antiquity of blood, 
if he carefully preserves his own genealogy, and that of his noble 
horses, it is only from reverence for the past, from the power of 
memory, and that force of imagination which is nourished by 
long solitude and leisure. The Arab is, of all mankind, the one 
whose mind is kept in the most constant activity. The history 
of his tribe is the rule of his conduct. Thrown by his wanderings 
into contact with men of all nations, he never forgets the evil or 
the good which his fathers have received at the hands of the fa- 
thers of those he encounters. In the total absence of all social 
power, of all guarantee for personal security afforded by magis- 
trates or by laws, gratitude and revenge become fundamental 
rules of his conduct. Education and habit have conspired to 
place them beyond the domain of reason, under the guardianship 
of honour and of a kind of religion. His gratitude is boundless 
in its devotion, his vengeance unchecked by pity; it is as patient 
and artful as it is cruel, because it is kept alive by a sense of duty 
rather than by passion; the study of past times, even the record of 
the genealogies of his race, serves as fuel to these two sentiments. 

But the memory of the Arab is enriched by other recollections. 
The most intense of all the national pleasures is that of poetry; a 
poetry very different from ours, breathing more impetuous desires, 
more burning passions, and uttered in a language more figurative, 
adorned with an imagination more unbridled. We are bad judges 
of its beauties or of its defects; we ought, however, to admit that it 
is not the poetry of an uncivilized nation, but of a nation which, 
following a road to civilization different from that we have trod. 



252 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

has advanced as far as climate and other insurmountable obstacles 
would permit. The Arabic language has been constructed and 
polished with care, and the wanderer of th« desert is sensible to 
the slightest want of delicacy, of purity, of expression. Eloquence 
had been cultivated as well as poetry; and before that of the ex- 
positors of the law had acquired its full maturity under the reigns 
of the caliphs, political eloquence had attained to a high perfec- 
tion, both in the councils of the republics of the Red Sea, and 
under the tents of the desert, where the chieftains needed its aid 
to persuade those whom they knew it to be impossible to command. 

Religion had still deeper influence over the imaginations of the 
Arabs than poetry; this grave and ardent people, incessantly 
struggling with difficulties, having death always before their 
eyes, often exposed to those long and austere privations which 
exalt the soul of the cenobite, had, from all times, turned their 
meditations towards the remote and mysterious destinies of man, 
and his connexion with the invisible world. The eldest religion 
of the earth, Judaism, had its birth almost within the limits of 
Arabia. Palestine is on its frontiers; the Hebrews long inhabited 
the desert; one of the sacred books (that of Job) was written by 
an Arab, in his native tongue; and tlie origin of the Arabic na- 
tion, the descent from Ismael, the son of Abraham; flattered the 
national pride. Numerous and powerful colonies of Jews were 
scattered over Arabia, where they freely exercised their religion. 
Still more numerous colonies of Christians had been successively 
introduced, by the furious persecutions set on foot in the empire 
against all the sects which had successively fallen off from ortho- 
doxy in the long dissensions on the Arian controversy, and that 
of the two natures. Arabia was so completely free, that abso- 
lute toleration necessarily existed; and all these refugee sects, 
and all the proselytes they could make among the Arabs, were 
on a footing of perfect equality. Finding it impossible to injure 
each other, they were forced to live in peace; and those who on 
the other side the frontier were incessantly occupied in de- 
nouncing each other to the tribunals, in reciprocally stripping 
each other of the rights of citizens and of men, seemed in Ara- 
bia to be restored to some feeling of charity. 

But though Arabia had received M'ithin her bosom Jews, Chris- 
tians of all sects. Magi, and Sabeans, she had, also, a national 
religion, a polytheism peculiar to herself. Its principal temple 
was the Kaaba at Mecca, where a black stone which had fallen 



CHAP. XIII.] MAHOMMED. 253 

from heaven was the object of veneration to the faithful, and the 
temple in which it was deposited was likewise adorned with 
three hundred and sixty idols. The guardianship of the Kaaba 
was intrusted to the family of the Koreishites, the most ancient 
and most illustrious race of the republic of Mecca; and this sa- 
cerdotal dignity conferred on the head of the family the presi- 
dency over the councils of the republic. Pilgrims from all 
parts of Arabia devoutly repaired to Mecca to adore the sacred 
stone, and to deposite their offerings in the Kaaba; and the inha- 
bitants of Mecca, whose city, deprived of water, and surrounded 
by a steril region, had owed its prosperity to superstition rather 
than to commerce, were attached to the national faith with a 
zeal heightened by personal interest. 

In the year 569 of our era, was born, of one of the most dis- 
tinguished families of Arabia, a man who combined all the quali- 
ties which characterize his nation. Mahommed, the son of Ab- 
dallah, was of the race of the Koreishites, and of the particular 
branch of Hussein, to which the guardianship of the Kaaba and 
the presidency of the republic of Mecca were attached. Ab- 
dal-Motalieb,the grandfather of Mahommed, had held these high 
dignities; but he, as well as his son Abdallah, died before Mo- 
hammed arrived at man's estate. The presidency of Mecca 
passed to Abu Taleb, the eldest of his sons; and Mahommed's 
portion of the paternal inheritance was reduced to five camels 
and a single slave. At the age of twenty-five he engaged in the 
service of a rich and noble widow, named Khadijah, for whose 
commercial interests he made two journeys into Syria. His 
zeal and intelligence were soon rewarded with the hand of Kha- 
dijah. His wife was no longer young; and Mahommed, who 
was reputed the handsomest of the Koreishite race, and who had 
a passion for women vv'hich Arab morality does not condemn, and 
which polygamy, established by law, has sanctioned, proved the 
sincerity and tenderness of his gratitude, by his fidelity, during 
a union of twenty-four years. As long as she lived, he gave her 
no rival. 

Restored by his marriage to opulence and repose, Mahommed, 
whose character was austere, whose imagination was ardent, and 
whom his extreme sobriety, exceeding that of most anchorets, 
disposed to religious meditations and lofty reveries, had now no 
other thought, no other occupation, than to fix his own belief, to 
disengage it from the grosser superstitions of his country, and to 

33 



254 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

elevate his mind to the knowledge of God. Grandson and ne- 
phew of the high priest of an idol, powerful and revered for his 
connexion with the temple of the black stone, Mahommed beheld 
the divinity neither in this rude emblem nor in the idols made by 
the hand of man which surrounded it. He sought it in his soul 5 
he recognised its existence as an eternal spirit, omnipresent, be- 
nificent, and incapable of being represented by any corporeal 
image. After brooding over this sublime idea for fifteen years 
in solitude, after ripening it by meditation, after, perhaps, exalt- 
ing his imagination by reveries, at the age of forty he resolved 
to become the reformer of his nation 5 he believed himself — so, 
at least, he affirmed — called to this work by a special mission of 
the divinity. 

It would be an act of extreme injustice to persist in regarding 
as a mere impostor, and not as a reformer, the man who urged a 
whole nation onwards in the most important of all steps in the 
knowledge of truths who led it from an absurd and degrading 
idolatry, from a priestly slavery which compromised morality 
and opened a market for the redemption of every vice by expia- 
tions, to the knowledge of an omnipotent, omnipresent, and su- 
premely good Being; — of the true God, in short; for, since his 
attributes are the same, and he is acknowledged the sole object 
of worship, the God of the Musulmans is the God of the Chris- 
tians. The profession of faith which Mahommed taught to 
his disciples, and which has been preserved unaltered to this 
day, is, that there is but one God, and that Mahommed is his 
prophet. Was he an impostor because he called himself a pro- 
phet.? 

Even on this head, a melancholy experience of human weak- 
ness — of that mixture of enthusiasm and artifice which, in all 
ages, has characterized leaders of sects, and which we might, 
perhaps, find in our own times, and at no great distance from us, 
in men whose persuasion is undoubtedly sincere, and whose zeal 
ardent, yet who assert or insinuate a claim to supernatural gifts 
which they do not possess — ought to teach us indulgence. An 
intense persuasion is easily confounded with an internal revela- 
tion; the dreams of an excited imagination become sensible ap- 
pearances; faith in a future event seems to us like a prophecy; 
we hesitate to remove an error which has arisen spontaneously 
within the mind of a true believer, when we think it favourable 
to his salvation; after sparing his illusions, the next thing is to 



CHAP. XIII.] THE KORAN. Q55 

encourage them, and thus we arrive at pious frauds, which we 
fancy justified by their end, and by their effect. We easily per- 
suade ourselves of what we have persuaded others^ and we be- 
lieve in ourselves when those we love believe in us. Mahom- 
med never pretended to the gift of miracles j we need not go far 
to find preachers of our own days, who have founded no empires 
and yet are not so modest. 

But the most perfect probity affords no security against the 
dangers of fanaticism, the intolerance which it engenders, nor 
the cruelty to which it leads. Mahommed was the reformer of 
the Arabs; he taught them, and he wished to teach them, the 
knowledge of the true God. Nevertheless, from the time he 
adopted the new character of prophet, his life lost its purity, his 
temper its mildness; policy entered into his religion, fraud min- 
gled more and more with his conduct; and, at the close of his 
career, we can hardly explain to ourselves how he could be in 
good faith with himself. 

Mahommed could not read; letters were not essential in Ara- 
bia to a good education : but his memory was adorned with all 
the most brilliant poetry of his native tongue, his style was pure 
and elegant, and his eloquence forcible and seductive. The Ko- 
ran, which he dictated, is esteemed the masterpiece of Arabian 
literature; and the sublimity of the language affords to Musul- 
mans sufficient evidence of the inspired character of its author, 
though, to readers of another faith, the traces of inspiration are 
not manifest. An admiration acquired in the earliest infancy 
for a work constantly present to the memory, constantly recalled 
by all the allusions of national literature, soon creates the very 
beauty it seems to find. The rarity of literary education seems 
to have inspired Mahommed with a sort of religious reverence 
for every book which pretended to inspiration. The authority 
of The Book, the authority of every thing written, is always 
great among semi-barbarous people; it is peculiarly so among the 
Musulmans. The books of the Jews, of the Christians, even of 
the Magi, raise those who make them the rule of their faith, 
above the rank of infidels in the eyes of the followers of Ma- 
hommed; and he himself, while he claimed the character of the 
greatest prophet of God, the Paraclete promised in Holy Writ, 
admitted six successive divine revelations — those of Adam, 
Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ, and, as the final accomplish- 
ment of all, his own. 



256 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

The religion of Mahommed does not consist in belief in dog- 
mas alone, but in the practice of morality — in justice and chari- 
ty. He has, it is true, shared the fate of other legislators who 
have tried to subject the virtues of the heart to positive rules; — 
the form has taken the place of the substance. Of all acts of 
religious legislation, the Koran is the one which has erected alms- 
giving into the most rigorous duty, and has given to it the most 
precise limits: it exacts from a tenth to a fifth of the income of 
every true believer, for works of charity^ But the rule has been 
substituted for the sentiment; the charity of the Musulman is 
an affair of personal calculation, directed entirely to his own sal- 
vation; and the man who has scrupulously performed the duty 
of almsgiving, is not the less hard and cruel to his fellow-men. 

Outward observances were especially necessary in a religion, 
which, admitting no religious ceremonies, and even no order of 
priesthood except the guardians of the laws, seemed peculiarly 
exposed to danger from coldness and indifference. Preaching 
was the social observance; prayer, ablution, fast, the individual 
observances, enjoined on Musulmans. To the very end of his 
life, Mahommed constantly preached to his people, either on 
Friday, the day he had specially set apart for religious worship, 
or on solemn occasions, — in all moments of danger, in all mo- 
ments of inspiration. His inspiring and seductive eloquence con- 
tributed to increase the number of his followers, and to animate 
their zeal. After him, the early caliphs, and all who enjoyed 
any authority among the faithful, continued these preachings or 
exhortations, often at the head of armies, whose martial ardour 
they heightened by the aid of religious enthusiasm. Five times 
a day, the Musulman is bound to utter a short and fervent 
prayer, expressed in w^ords of his own, unfettered by any form 
or liturgy. As a means of fixing his attention, he is commanded 
to turn his face towards Mecca while he prays — towards that 
very temple of the Kaaba which was consecrated to idols, but 
wliich Mahommed, after having purified and hallowed it to the 
true God, regarded with the veneration it had so long command- 
ed from his nation and his family. Personal cleanliness was 
prescribed as a duty to the true believer who was about to pre- 
sent himself as a supplicant before God; and ablution of the face 
and hands was the necessary preparation for every prayer. Yet, 
as Islamism was first proclaimed to a nation which dwelt in de- 
serts where water was not to be found, the Koran permits the 



OHAP. XIII.] MORALITY OF THE KORAN. 257 

faithful, in case of extreme need, to substitute ablutions with 
sand. The fasts were very rigid, and admitted of no exception; 
thej bore the character of the sober and austere man who im- 
posed them on his disciples. At all times, and in all places, he 
forbade them the use of wine, and of every sort of fermented 
liquor: and, during one month of the year, the Ramadan, which, 
according to the lunar calendar, falls in every month in succes- 
sion, the Musulmans, from sunrise to sunset, may neither eat nor 
drink, neither enjoy the luxury of the bath nor of perfumes, nor, 
in short, any gratification of the senses. Nevertheless, Mahom- 
med, who imposed so rigid a penance on his disciples, was no 
advocate for an ascetic life 5 he did not permit his companions to 
bind themselves by vows, nor would he suffer any monks in his 
religion: it was not till three years after his death, that fakirs 
and derricks arose, and this is one of the most important changes 
Islamism has undergone. 

But the kind of abstinence on which Christian doctors have in- 
sisted the most, was that to which Mahommed was indifferent, or 
which he regarded with the greatest indulgence. Before his time 
the Arabs had enjoyed unbounded license in love and marriage. 
Mahommed forbade incestuous unions; he punished adultery and 
dissoluteness, and diminished the facility of divorce; but he per- 
mitted every Musulman to have four wives or concubines, whose 
rights and privileges he defined by law. Raising himself alone, 
above the laws he had imposed on others, after the death of his 
first wife Khadijah, he married fifteen, or, according to other 
writers, seventeen wives in succession, all widows, with the ex- 
ception of Ayesha, daughter of Abubekr. A fresh chapter of the 
Koran was brought him by an angel to dispense him from sub- 
mission to a law which, to us, seems so little severe. 

His indulgence for this burning passion of the Arabian tempe- 
rament, which he shared with his countrymen, farther displayed 
itself in the nature of the future rewards he proclaimed as the 
sanctions of his religion. He described the forms of the judg- 
ment to come; in which the body, uniting itself anew to the soul, 
the sins and the good works of all who believed in God would be 
weighed, and rewarded or punished. With a tolerance rare in 
the leader of a sect, he declared, or at least he did not deny, that 
the followers of every religion might be saved, provided their 
actions were virtuous. But to the Musulman he promised, that 
whatever might have been his conduct, he would finally be re- 



258 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XIII, 

ceived into paradise, after expiating his sins or his crimes in a state 
of purgatory, which would not exceed seven thousand years. The 
picture which he drew of purgatory and of hell differed little 
from those which other religions have presented to the terror of 
mankind. But his paradise was painted by an Arab imagination: 
groves, rivulets, flowers; perfumes under the shade of fresh and 
verdant groves; seventy black-eyed houris, gifted with immortal 
youth and dazzling beauty, solely occupied in administering to 
the enjoyments of each true believer; — such were the rewards 
promised to the faithful. Although some of Mahommed's most 
zealous disciples had been women, he abstained from declaring 
what sort of paradise was in store for them. 

Among the articles of faith which Mahommed strove to inculcate 
on the minds of his followers, was one which acquired greater 
importance when he united the character of conqueror to that of 
prophet. In his endeavours to reconcile the inscrutable union of 
divine prescience with human liberty, he had leaned towards fa- 
talism; but he never denied the influence of human will on human 
actions: he only taught his soldiers that the houi^ of death was 
determined aforehand, and that he who sought to escape it on the 
field of battle, would meet it in his bed. But disjoining this idea 
from all others, by insisting little on any other kind of constraint 
imposed by divine prescience on the freewill of man, and incul- 
cating this single position with undivided force (though fatalism, 
to be rational, ought to extend to every action of our lives,) he 
inspired the Musulmans with an indifference to danger, he gave 
a security to their bravery, which we should seek in vain among 
soldiers, animated only by the nobler sentiments of honour and 
patriotism. 

It was in the year 609, when Mahommed was already forty, 
that he began to preach his new doctrine at Mecca. He sought 
his first proselytes in his own family, and the influence he ob- 
tained over their minds affords sufficient evidence of the excel- 
lence of his domestic character. Khadijah was his first convert; 
then Seid, his slave; Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, his cousin; and 
Abubekr, one of the most considerable citizens of Mecca. Ten 
years were employed by Mahommed in slowly disseminating the 
new doctrine among liis countrymen. All who adopted it be- 
came inflamed with the ardent faith of new converts. The pro- 
phet — that was the only name by which Mahommed was known 
among his disciples — seemed to them to speak the immediate 



CHAP. XIII.] PROGRESS OF MAHOMMEDANISM. 259 

word of the Divinitj; he left not a doubt on their minds either 
as to the truths he revealed, or as to the fulfilment of his pro- 
mises. 

In the fourth year of his declared mission he appointed his 
cousin Ali, then not more than fourteen years old, his vizir; the 
empire he had to govern did not then extend over more than 
twenty followers. 

Mahommed did not address himself to the citizens of Mecca 
alone. He waited at the Kaaba for the pilgrims who resorted 
thither from all parts of Arabia; he represented to them the in- 
coherence and the grossness of the religious rites they came to 
practise; he appealed to their reason, and implored them to ac- 
knowledge the one God, invisible, all good, all powerful, — the 
ruler of the universe, — instead of the black stone or the lifeless 
idols before which they prostrated themselves. The eloquence 
of Mahommed gained him proselytes; but the citizens of Mecca 
were indignant at this attack on the sanctity of their peculiar 
temple; this blow at the prosperity of their city, no less than at 
the authority of their religion, by the grandson of their high 
priest, the nephew of their chief magistrate. They called upon 
Abu Taleb to put an end to this scandal. Mahommed's uncle, 
at the same time that he opposed every possible resistance to the 
spread of his nephew's doctrine, would not suffer his life or his 
liberty to be attacked. Mahommed, supported by the family of 
Hashem against the remaining Koreishites, refused to submit to 
a decree of excommunication pronounced against him and fixed 
up in the temple. Aided by his disciples, he sustained a siege 
in his own house, repulsed the assailants, and kept his ground at 
Mecca till the death of Abu Taleb and of Khadijah. But when 
Abu Sophyan, Of the branch of the Ommaiades, succeeded to the 
dignities of head of the republic and of religion, Maiiommed 
clearly saw that flight was his only resource; for already his ene- 
mies had agreed that he should be struck at the same instant by 
the sword of one member of every tribe, so that none might be pe- 
culiarly obnoxious to the vengeance of the Hashemites. 

A refuge, however, was already prepared for Mahommed. His 
religion had made some progress in the rest of Arabia: and the 
city of Medina, sixty miles to the north of Mecca, on the Arabian 
Gulf, had declared itself ready to receive him, and to acknowledge 
him as prophet and sovereign. But the flight was difficult — that 
celebrated flight called the Hegira, and which forms the grand era 



260 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

of the Musulman religion. The Koreishites watched Mahommed 
with the utmost vigilancej thej were, however, deceived by the 
brave and the faithful Ali. In the full conviction that he was 
devoting himself to the poniards of the implacable foes of his lead- 
er and friend, he placed himself in Mahommed's bed. Mahom- 
med and Abubekr fled alone. In the deserts of Arabia, where 
there are few objects to break the monotonous line of the horizon, 
it is not easy to escape the eye of enemies well mounted and 
eager in pursuit. The two fugitives were on the point of falling 
into the hands of the Koreishites, when they found an asylum in 
the cavern of Thor, where they passed three days. Their pur- 
suers advanced to the mouth of the cave^ but seeing the web of 
a spider hanging unbroken across it, they concluded that no hu- 
man being could have entered, and passed on. It was not till the 
heat of the pursuit had subsided, that Mahommed and Abubekr, 
mounted on two dromedaries which their partisans had procured, 
and accompanied by a chosen band of fugitives from Mecca, made 
their entry into Medina, on the 10th of October, a. d. 622, sixteen 
days after they had quitted the former city. 

From this time Mahommed, who was now fifty-three years of 
age, was regarded not only as a prophet, but as a military sove- 
reign. His religion assumed a different spirit; he no longer con- 
tented himself with the arts of persuasion, he assumed a tone of 
command. He declared that the season of long-suffering and 
patience was over; and that his mission, and that of every true 
believer, was to extend the empire of his religion by the sword, to 
destroy the temples of infidels, to obliterate all the monuments of 
idolatry, and to pursue unbelievers to the ends of the earth, with- 
out resting from so holy a work even on the days specially con- 
secrated to religion. 

*' The sword," said he, *' is the key of heaven and of hell; a 
drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night passed under 
arms on his behalf, will be of more avail hereafter to the faithful, 
than two months of fasting and prayer. To whomsoever falls in 
battle, his sins shall be pardoned; at the day of judgment his 
wounds will shine with the splendour of vermilion; they will 
emit the fragrance of musk and of ambergris; and the wings of 
angels and of the cherubim shall be the substitutes for the limbs 
he may have lost." 

Nor were the glories of heaven the only rewards offered to the 
valour of the Musulmans: the riches of earth were also to be di- 



CHAP. XIII.] MAHOMMEd's MILITARY TALENTS. 261 

vided among them| and Mahommed from that time began to lead 
them on to the attack of the rich caravans which crossed the de- 
sert. His religion thus attracted the wandering Bedouin, less 
from the sublime dogmas of the unity and spirituality of God, 
which it promulgated, than from the sanction it gave to pillage, 
and the rights it conferred on conquerors, not only over the 
wealth, but over the women and slaves of the conquered. 

Yet at the very time that Mahommed shared the treasures won 
by the combined force of the believers, in his own person he did 
not depart from the antique simplicity of his life. His house and 
his mosque at Medina were wholly devoid of ornament^ his gar- 
ments were coarse; his food consisted of a few dates and a little 
barley bread; and he preached to the people every Friday, leaning 
on the trunk of a palm tree. It was not till after the lapse of many 
years, that he allowed himself the luxury of a wooden chair. 

Mahommed's first battle was fought in 623, against the Korei- 
shites in the valley of Bedr. He had tried to get possession of 
a rich caravan, headed by Abu Sophyan; the inhabitants of Mec- 
ca had assembled in a number greatly superior to that he com- 
manded, with a view to deliver it: 350 Musulmans were opposed 
to 850 Koreishite infantry, seconded by 100 horse. 

Such were the feeble means with which a war was carried on, 
which was soon to decide the fate of a large portion of the globe. 
The fanatical ardour of the Musulmans triumphed over the nu- 
merical superiority of their enemies. They believed that the suc- 
cour of three thousand angels, led by the archangel Gabriel, had 
decided the fate of the battle. But Mahommed had not made 
the faith of his people dependent on success; the same year he 
was beaten at Ohud, six miles from Medina, and himself wound- 
ed. In a public discourse he announced his defeat, and the death 
of seventy martyrs, who, he declared, had already entered into 
the joys of paradise. 

Mahommed was indebted to the Jews for a part of his know- 
ledge and of his religion, yet he entertained that hatred of them 
which seems to become more bitter between religious sects, in 
proportion as their differences are few, and their points of agree- 
ment many. Powerful colonies of that nation, rich, commercial, 
and utterly devoid of all the warlike virtues, had established 
themselves in Arabia, at a little distance from Medina: Mahom- 
med attacked them in succession, from the year 623 to 627. He 
was not satisfied with partitioning their property, he gave up al- 

34 



262 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIII. 

most all the conquered to tortures which, in his other wars, rare- 
ly sullied the lustre of his arms. 

But the object of Mahommed's most ardent desires was the 
conquest of Mecca. This city was, in his eyes, both the future 
seat of his religion, and his true country. There it was that he 
wished to restore the glory of his ancestors, and to surpass it by 
that which he had won for himself. His first attempts had 
little success, but every year added to the number of his prose- 
lytes: Omar, Khaled, Amru, who had distinguished themselves 
in the ranks of his enemies, successively went over to his ban- 
ner; 10,000 Arabs of the desert swelled his ranks; and, in 629, 
Abu Sophyan was compelled to surrender to him the keys of the 
city. Eleven men and six women, who had been conspicuous 
among his ancient foes, were proscribed by Mahommed. This 
was little for the vengeance of an Arab. The Koreishites threw 
themselves at his feet. " What mercy can you expect," said he, 
"from a man whom you have so deeply offended?" — "We 
trust," replied they, " to the generosity of our kinsman." — 
"And you shall not trust in vain," said he; "you are free." 
The Kaaba was purified by his orders; all the inhabitants of 
Mecca embraced the religion of the Koran; and a perpetual law 
prohibited any unbeliever from setting foot within the holy city. 

Every step gained by the victor prophet rendered the succeed- 
ing one less difiicult; and, after the conquest of Mecca, that of 
the rest of Arabia cost him only three years, (from 629 to 632.) 
It was marked by the great victory of Hunain, and by the siege 
and the reduction of Tayef. His lieutenants advanced from the 
shores of the Red Sea to those of the ocean and of the Persian 
Gulf; and, at the period of Mahommed's last pilgrimage to the 
Kaaba, in 632, a hundred and fourteen thousand Musulmans 
marched under his banner. 

During the six years of his reign, Mahommed fought in person 
at nine sieges or battles, and his lieutenants led on the army of 
the faithful in fifteen military expeditions. Almost all these 
were confined within the limits of Arabia; but, in 629 or 630, 
Seid marched at the head of a Musulman army into Palestine; 
and Heraclius, at the moment of his return from his brilliant 
campaigns, was attacked by an unknown enemy. The following 
year Mahommed advanced in person, at the head of 20,000 foot 
and 10,000 horse, on the road to Damascus, and formally de- 
clared war upon the Roman empire. It does not appear, how- 



CHAP. XIII.] DEATH OF MAHOMMED. 263 

ever, that any battle was foughtj and, perhaps, his declining 
health induced him to disband his army. 

Mahommed had now reached his sixty-third year: for four 
years the vigour of body which he had formerly displayed had 
seemed to desert him, yet he continued to discharge all the func- 
tions of a king, a general, and a prophet. A fever, which lasted 
a fortnight, accompanied with occasional delirium, was the im- 
mediate cause of his death. As he felt his danger, he recom- 
mended himself to the prayers of the faithful, and to the for- 
giveness of all whom he might have offended. " If," said he, in 
his last public discourse, " there be any one here whom I have 
struck unjustly, I submit myself to be struck by him in return^ 
if I have injured the reputation of any Musulman, let him in his 
turn disclose all my sins; if I have despoiled any one, behold I 
am ready to satisfy his claims."—'' Yes," replied a voice from 
the crowd, " thou owest me three drachms of silver, which have 
never been repaid me." Mohammed examined the debt, dis- 
charged it, and thanked his creditor for demanding it in this 
world, rather than at the tribunal of God. He then enfranchised 
his slaves, gave minute directions for his burial, calmed the la- 
mentations of his friends, and pronounced a benediction upon 
them. Till within three days of his death he continued to per- 
form his devotions in the mosque. When, at length, he was too 
feeble, he charged Abubekr with this duty; and it was thought 
that he thus intended to point out his old friend as his successor. 
But he expressed no opinion, no desire, on this subject, and 
seemed to leave it entirely to the decision of the assembly of the 
faithful. He contemplated the approach of death with perfect 
calmness; but, mingling to the last the doubtful pretensions of a 
prophet with the lively faith of an enthusiast, he repeated the 
words which he declared he heard from the archangel Gabriel, 
who visited the earth for the last time on his behalf. He repeat- 
ed what he had before affirmed— that the angel of death would 
not bear away his soul without first solemnly asking his permis- 
sion; and this permission he granted aloud. Extended on a car- 
pet which covered the floor, his head during his last agony rested 
on the bosom of Ayesha, the best beloved of his wives. He 
fainted from excess of pain; but, on recovering his senses, he 
fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and distinctly pronounced these, 
his last words: — *' Oh God, pardon my sins! I come to rejoin 



264 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XIII. 

my brethren in heaven." He expired on the 25th of May, or, 
according to another calculation, the 3d of June, 632. 

Despair filled the breasts of his disciples throughout the city 
of Medina, where he breathed his last. The fiery Omar, drawing 
his sword, declared that he would strike off the head of the infi- 
del who should dare to assert that the prophet was no more. But 
Abubekr, the faithful friend and the earliest disciple of Mahom- 
med, addressing himself to Omar, and to the multitude, said, 
"Is it Mahommed, or the God of Mahommed, that we worship? 
The God of Mahommed lives for ever: but his prophet w-as a 
mortal like ourselves; and, as he had predicted to us, he has un- 
dergone the common lot of humanity." 

By these words the tumult was appeased; and Mahommed was 
buried by his kindred, and by his cousin, and son-in-law, Ali, in 
the very spot where he expired. 



( 265 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Ignorance or Indifference of neig-hbouring- Nations to the Rise and Progress 
of Islamism. — Its rapid Spread under Mahommed's immediate Successors.—^ 
Union of the Military and the Monastic Character in the Saracenic War- 
riors. — Sing-ular Frugality of the Governmeat. — Abubekr elected under 
the title of Khaliph, or Lieutenant of the Prophet. — His extreme Frugality 
and Simplicity. — His Death. — He appoints Omar his Successor. — Charac- 
ter of Omar. — Conquests of the Musulmans during the Reigns of Abubekr 
and Omar. — Defeat of the King of Persia and of the Greek Emperor. — 
Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt.— Instructions of Abubekr to the 
Generals. — State of the Asiatic Provinces of the Greek Empire, and of 
Persia. — Threefold Alternative offered by the Mahommedan Conquerors 
before giving Battle. — Summons of Abu Obeidah to the City of Jerusalem. 
— Successses of Khaled in Persia. — His Recall to Syria. — Siege of Bosra. 
— Treachery of Romanus. — Desertions to the Musulman Army. — Siege 
of Damascus. — Fate of the Roman Empire decided at the Battle of Aiz- 
nadin. — Continued Successes of the Arabs.— Siege of Jerusalem. — Its Sur- 
render. — Entry of the Khaliph. — Submission of Antioch and Aleppo. — 
Flight of Heraclius and of his Son Constantine. — Dispersion of the Greek 
Army. — Submission of the rest of Syria. — Death of Abu Obeidah. — 
Death of Khaled. — Conquest of Persia by the Musulmans. — Battle of Ca- 
desia. — Death of Yezdegerd and Extinction of the Line of the Sassanides. 
— Conquest of Egypt by Amu.— Siege of Memphis. — Surrender of it by 
the Copts. — Foundation of Kahira, or Cairo. — Siege of Alexandria. — Its 
Evacuation by the Greeks. — Its Magnificence. — Virtuous Forbearance of 
Omar. — Alexandrian Library. — Death of Heraclius. — Changes in the Spirit 
of the Musulman Army. — Assassination of Omar. — Election of Othman, 
Secretary of the Prophet. — External Successes and Internal Dissensions of 
his Reign. — His Assassination. — Ah proclaimed Khaliph. — Opposition to 
him. — Ayesha. — Battle of the Camel. — Election of Moaviah in Syria. — 
Civil War between Ali and Moaviah. — Origin of the Sects of Shiahs and 
Sunnis. — Murder of Ali. — His Son Hassan acknowledged by the Shiahs. 
— Hassan's Abdication in Favour of Moaviah. — Khaliphate made heredi- 
tary in Moaviah's Family. — Revolt and Death of Hossein. — Destruction 
of the Family of the Prophet, a. d. 632—680. 

For twenty-three years Mahommed had sustained the charac- 
ter of prophet^ for ten, that of sovereign and conqueror; and, 
in the latter years of his life, he had given to his empire an extent 
far beyond what the hopes of any but a fanatic could possibly have 
aspired to at the commencement of his career. But his victories, 
his doctrine, and the revolution he had effected, had been confined 
within the boundaries of Arabia. Changes of opinion in an illite- 
rate nation, whose language had never been studied by its neigh- 
bours, did not seem of sufficient importance to engage the atten- 
tion of the world. The revolutions of the little republics of the Red 



266 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV« 

Sea had never had the slightest influence over the condition of 
other countries; and the union of the Arabs of the desert, free as 
the antelope which bounds over their sands, seemed never likely 
to be more than transitory. At Constantinople, at Antioch, and 
at Alexandria, the birth of Islamism was either wholly unknown, 
or was thought too insignificant to be feared. 

But the revolution, which, during the life of Mahommed, had 
been confined to Arabia, made wide and rapid progress during 
the lives of his earliest disciples and the reigns of his chosen 
friends. From the death of the prophet, in 632, to that of Ali, 
his cousin and son-in-law, and one of his first adherents, in 661, 
twelve years were filled with conquests which astound the ima- 
gination. During eleven years of weakness and irresolution, 
the monarchy then seemed to retrograde. Lastly, five years of 
furious civil war terminated in the establishment of a despotism 
as foreign to the first institutions of Mahommed, as to the man- 
ners and the sentiments of the Arabs. 

Mahommed had founded his military system entirely on the 
lively faith of his warriors; on the confidence with which he had 
inspired them, that the battle-field opened the shortest way to 
eternal happiness, and on the ardour of the Musulmans for ob- 
taining that new crown of martyrdom, reserved for those who 
fell by the sword of the infidel. But he had made no change in 
their armour, nor in their manner of fighting. The troops pre- 
sented the same appearance which their neighbours had held in 
constant contempt. The Saracen soldiers were half naked: 
armed, when on foot, only with a bow and arrows; when on 
horseback, (and these were the more numerous,) with a light 
lance and a sabre, or scimitar. Their horses were indefatigable, 
unequalled in the world for their docility, as well as for their 
spirit. But they did not manoeuvre in large or regular masses; 
they knew nothing of those charges of northern cavalry which 
bear down battalions by their resistless weight. Single-handed 
warriors advanced in front of the army to signalize themselves 
by acts of personal prowess, and, after a few lightning strokes of 
their flashing scimitars, escaped from their enemies by the swift- 
ness of their steeds, whenever they found themselves inferior in 
numbers or in armour. Battles were long-continued skirmishes, 
in which the hostile troops did not engage corps to corps: they 
frequently lasted several days; and it was not till after their ad- 
versaries, exhausted by unusual fatigue, were put to rout, that 



CHAP. XIV.] PROGRESS OF ISLAMISM. 267 

the Arabs became terrible in pursuit. Mahommed's brothers in 
arms do not seem to have made any advance in military science^ 
and, during the most brilliant period of Saracenic conquest, 
during the lives of the associates of the prophet, no sort of war- 
like engine followed the army, and sieges were conducted by 
them as they are by savages. Soldiers like these, known only as 
robbers of the desert, had never inspired any serious fears either 
in the Romans or the Persians, even in the times of the greatest 
distresses of either empire. Yet these desert-robbers attacked 
both empires at once, and overthrew both in a few years : their 
weapons were precisely the same^ their souls alone were 
changed. 

The spectacle had never before been exhibited (let us hope 
that it may never again be witnessed) of a great and entire na- 
tion, forgetting the present world, and occupied solely with the 
world to come, while, at the same time, it displayed all the 
worldly qualities^ the most consummate policy, the most intre- 
pid bravery, the most indefatigable activity. Never till now had 
the virtues of the monk been seen united with those of the sol- 
dier: sobriety, patience, submission, the strict performance of 
all duties, however humble, or however sublime, joined to lust 
of carnage, love of glory, and that enterprising energy of mind, 
so different from the passive courage of the convent. At a later 
period, in the wars of the crusades, the Christian knights exhi- 
bited the same qualities, but on a much more limited scale. If 
the warlike fanaticism of the knights of Malta had been commu- 
nicated to a whole people, they also would have conquered the 
world. 

Never had the revenues of a great empire been administered 
with the parsimony of a convent, by a government which cost 
nothing, which wanted nothing for itself, which scorned all lux- 
ury and all pleasure, and which devoted all the gains of war 
exclusively to the support of war. This government must be 
the first object of our attention. 

Mahommed had not connected any political opinions with his 
religion; he had not destroyed the freedom of the desert; he 
had instituted neither aristocratical senate, nor hereditary power, 
in his own, or in any other family. The liberty of all, the indi- 
vidual will of each, had been suspended by the power of inspi- 
ration. In him the people had thought they obeyed the voice of 
God, and not any human authority. When he died, no organi- 



268 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. XIV. 

zation had been given to the empire of the faithful, no hand 
seemed prepared to gather the inheritance of the prophet. But 
the same religious enthusiasm still inspired the Musulmans. 
Their sword, their wealth, and their power, ought, in their eyes, 
to have no other destination than the extending of the knowledge 
of the true God: the part which each took was indifferent, pro- 
vided he laboured with all his strength to the same end; and the 
presidency of the republic seemed to consist in nothing save the 
presidency of the prayers at the tomb or at the palace of Medi- 
na. It was thought that the early friends of the prophet were 
the most likely to be inspired by his example, and instructed by 
his familiar conversation; and, consequently, Abubekr, the first 
believer in Mahommed's mission, and the companion of his flight, 
was pointed out by Omar, and proclaimed by the chiefs assem- 
bled around the death-bed of the prophet, under the title of his 
lieutenant or khaliph. 

This title was acknowledged by the cities of Mecca, Medina,, 
and Tayef, and, more especially, by the army of the Faithful j 
but the Arabs of the desert, who had been allured far more by 
the hope of plunder than the revelations of the prophet, already 
began to desert a cause which they thought a tottering one. The 
idolaters, who had been thought converted, were in arms for the 
restoration of the ancient national faith; and a new prophet, 
named Moseilama, inspired either by genuine fanaticism, or by 
the example of Mahommed's success, preached a new religion in 
Yemen. Abubekr, already feeling the w^eight of years, thought 
himself dispensed from performing any other duties of a khaliph 
than those of public prayer and exhortation, and deputed the va- 
liant Khaled, surnamed 'the Sword of God,' to subdue the re- 
bels who abandoned the faith and attacked the empire of Islam - 
ism: his victories restored peace and religious unity to Arabia 
in a few months. 

Abubekr, mean while, had ordered his daughter Ayesha, the 
widow of Mahommed, to make an inventory of his patrimony, 
that every Musulman miglit know whether he had sought to en- 
rich himself by the contributions of the faithful. He demanded 
a salary or allowance of three pieces of gold a week for the main- 
tenance of himself, a single black slave, and one camel; at the 
end of every week he distributed to the poor all that was left out 
of this humble pension. Abubekr continued for two years at the 
head of the republic : his time was exclusively spent in prayer, 



CHAP. XIV.] MUSULMAN CONQUESTS. 269 

penitence, and the administration of justice, which was marked 
by equity, and tempered by mildness. At the close of this pe- 
riod, the aged friend of the prophet felt his end approaching; 
and, with the consent of the faithful, named the intrepid Omar 
as his successor. " I do not want that place,'^ said Omar. *' But 
the place wants you," replied Abubekr. Omar, having been sa- 
luted by the acclamations of the army, was invested with the 
khaliphate on the 24th of July, a. d. 634. 

Omar had given brilliant proofs of valour in the wars of Ma- 
hommed; but he considered the dignity of khaliph as putting an 
end to his military career, and exacting from him an exclusive 
attention to religious duties. During a reign of ten years he was 
solely intent on directing the prayers of the faithful, giving an 
example of moderation and justice, of abstinence, and contempt 
of outward grandeur. His food was barley bread or dates; his 
drink, water; the dress in which he preached to the people was 
patched in twelve places. A satrap of Persia, who came to do 
him homage, found him sleeping on the steps of the mosque at 
Medina; and yet he had at his disposal funds which had enabled 
him to grant pensions to all the brothers in arms of the prophet. 
All those who had fought at the battle of Bedr, had five thou- 
sand pieces of gold a year; all who had served under Mahom- 
med had, at least, three thousand; and all the soldiers who had 
distinguished themselves under Abubekr enjoyed some reward. 

It was during the reigns of Abubekr and Omar that the Mu- 
sulmans achieved the most wonderful conquests. During these 
twelve years they attacked, at the same time, the two rivals, 
Yezdegerd, grandson of Chosroes, king of Persia, and Heraclius, 
the Roman emperor. They subjugated Syria, Persia, and Egypt; 
they reduced to obedience thirty-six thousand cities, towns, or 
castles; they destroyed four thousand temples or churches, and 
they built fourteen hundred mosques dedicated to the religion of 
Mahommed. These conquests were achieved by lieutenants ap- 
pointed by the khaliph. Among them, Khaled, the Sword of 
God; Amru, the conqueror of Egypt; Abu Obeidah, the pro- 
tector as well as the conqueror of Syria, peculiarly distinguished 
themselves: but all jealousy and personal ambition were so en- 
tirely forgotten by men whose sole object was the triumph and 
ascendency of Islamism, that they descended in turn from the 
highest commands to the most subaltern posts; and a private sol- 
dier or an enfranchised slave was set over the heads of veteran 

35 



SrO FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV. 

warriors, without exciting a murmur, or the least inclination to 
resistance. 

The comrades of Mahommed, being utterly ignorant of geo- 
graphy; of the interests, the strength, the policy, and the lan- 
guage of the neighbouring nations whom they attacked; had no 
idea of laying the plan of a campaign; of strengthening them- 
selves by alliances, or of establishing secret correspondences in 
the countries they were about to invade. The instructions which 
they gave to the commanders of armies were general and simple; 
those of Abubekr to the two commanders of the army of Syria, 
Abu Obeidah and Khaled, have come down to us. They will 
give some notion of the spirit which animated the early Musul- 
mans. • 

'* Remember," said he, *^ that you are always in the presence 
of God; always at the point of death; always in expectation of 
judgment; always in hope of paradise: avoid, then, injustice and 
oppression; consult with your brethren, and study to preserve 
the love and the confidence of your troops. When you fight the 
battles of the Lord, bear yourselves like men, and turn not your 
backs upon the enemy. Let your victories never be sullied by 
the blood of vv^omen or of children. Destroy not the palm trees, 
neither burn the standing corn, nor cut down fruit-bearing trees. 
Do no damage to the herds and flocks, nor kill any beasts but 
such as are necessary for your sustenance. Whatsoever treaty 
you make, be faithful to it, and let your deeds be according to 
your words. As you advance into the enemy's country, you will 
find religious persons who live retired in monasteries, to the end 
that they may serve God after their manner. You shall not slay 
them, nor destroy their monasteries. But you will find, also, 
another sort of men, who belong to the synagogue of Satan, and 
who have the crown of their heads shaven. To such give no 
quarter, unless they become Mahommedans, or consent to pay 
tribute." 

I know not what was the distinction Abubekr thus intended 
to establish between the two sorts of monks and priests. But 
the Musulmans were now, for the first time, about to meet the 
Christians face to face; and Abubekr, who knew the latter only 
by report, probably acted in obedience to some prejudice of 
which we are ignorant. We do not find that, when the Musul- 
mans had actually entered the various countries of Christendom 



CHAP. XIV.] STATE OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. 271 

as invaders, they did, in fact, refuse to give quarter to tonsured 
priests. 

The Asiatic provinces of the Greek empire, and Persia, alter- 
nately devastated, during the vt^ars of Chosroes and of Heraclius, 
in the seventh century, underwent a change in their organization 
and in their population, the causes and the mode of which it is 
impossible for us to come at any just understanding of, on the 
very meager and inadequate reports of ancient historians. The 
fortresses were dismantled j confidence in the strength of the 
frontiers was gone 5 the administration was disorganized, and 
obedience to government was irregular and imperfect. But 
want, the suffering under a foreign yoke, and probably the flight 
or the abduction of a great number of slaves, had forced the 
provincials to act with a little more courage and manliness^ to 
take a more active share in their own affairs^ to withdraw less 
from the toils and perils of war. 

It seems that they were once more become soldiers, although 
very bad soldiers. As we approach the conclusion of the reign 
of Heraclius, we begin once more to find mention of armies pro- 
portioned to the extent of his empire^ of armies of a hundred 
thousand men, though their valour and discipline, indeed, were 
of a kind which lead us to suppose that they were composed ex- 
clusively of provincial and Asiatic militia. The names of the 
officers, which are incidentally mentioned, are not Greek, but 
Syrian; the towns seem to recover an independent existence; 
their own citizens roused themselves in their defence; their own 
magistrates directed all their affairs; and the interests of the 
empire are forgotten in the interests of the province. It was 
not in a country in which all vital energy was annihilated by the 
long and deadly presence of despotism, but in one in which that 
energy had lost all its ordinary action from the efforts of anar- 
chy and of foreign occupation, that the Musulman generals had 
to combat. Hence it doubtless happens, that after victory they 
invariably found recruits for their own armies from the ranks of 
those of their enemies. 

The Musulmans did not attack the Persians or the Syrians by 
surprise. They always prefaced the battle by a summons, in 
which they gave their enemies the threefold choice; either to be- 
come converts to Islamism, and in that case to share all the ho- 
nours, enjoyments, rights, and privileges of true believers; or to 
submit on condition of paying tribute; or, lastly, to try the for- 



272 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV, 

tune of war. We have the summons addressed to the city of 
Jerusalem by Abu Obeidah. It is highly characteristic: — 

" Salvation and happiness to whomsoever followeth the 
straight path. We require you to testify that God is the true 
God, and that Mahommed is his prophet. If you refuse to do 
this, promise to pay tribute, and submit yourselves immediately 
to us. Otherwise I shall bring against you men who find more 
pleasure in death, than you find in drinking wine and in eating 
the flesh of swinej and I shall not depart from you till it shall 
have pleased God to enable me to destroy those among you who 
fight against me, and to reduce your children to slavery." 

In the course of one year, the very year of the death of Ma- 
hommed, (a. d. 632,) Abubekr sent two armies, the one against 
Persia, the other against Syria. The former, conducted by 
Khaled, advanced as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and con- 
quered the cities of Anbar and of Hira, near the ruins of Baby- 
lon. The kingdom of Persia was, at that time, torn by intestine 
wars between the successors of Chosroes IV. But the Musul- 
mans, instead of pushing their conquests in that direction, re- 
called Khaled, and sent him to join -Abu Obeidah, who com- 
manded the second army in Syria. This general, after proposing 
to the Romans an alternative which they scarcely understood, — 
to acknowledge the true God and his prophet, or to pay a tri- 
bute, — had attacked Bosra, one of the fortified cities which co- 
vered Syria on the Arabian frontier. The Syrians would hardly 
believe the attack with which they were menaced to be much 
more formidable than those incursions of wandering bands of 
Arabs of the desert, to which they were accustomed. Their 
governor, Romanus, had formed a different judgment; he urged 
his countrymen to surrender; and when they, in their indigna- 
tion, deprived him of the command, he treacherously introduced 
the Arabs by night into the fortress. On the following day, in 
the presence of his astonished fellow-citizens, he made a public 
profession of his new faith in the one God and in Mahommed his 
prophet. This was the beginning of those desertions which in- 
flicted a deadly blow upon the empire. All the discontented; 
all those whose ambition or cupidity outran their advancement 
or their fortune; all who had any secret injury to avenge, were 
sure to be received with open arms in the ranks of the victors, 
and to share, according to their several merits, either the equa- 
lity which reigned among the soldiers, or the offices of command 



CHAP. XIV.] SIEGES OF BOSRA AND DAMASCUS. 273 

and the splendid rewards which awaited their chiefs. Even in 
those provinces where tlie Romans had never been able to levy 
a single cohort, the Musulman army was recruited hj fugitives 
with a rapidity, a facility, which abundantly proves that it is the 
government, and not the climate, which gives or which destroys 
courage. 

The surrender of Bosra was quickly followed by the attack on 
Damascus, one of the most flourishing cities of Syria, and pecu- 
liarly favoured as to situation^ although the history of the em- 
pire, hitherto, scarcely contains a mention of its existence. But 
the siege of Damascus awakened the attention of Heraclius, 
who had been returned about four years from his successful wars 
in Persia, and had relapsed into that luxurious indolence whence 
we saw him arouse himself for a short time in so surprising a 
manner. He collected an army, which the Arabs affirm to have 
been seventy thousand strongj but he did not put himself at its 
head. His lieutenants endeavoured in vain to raise the siege of 
Damascus; and, in the disastrous battle of Aiznadin, on the 13th 
of July, A. D. 633, the fate of the Roman empire in Asia was 
decided; Heraclius never recovered a defeat in which his army 
is said to have lost fifty thousand men. 

The taking of Damascus, after a siege which lasted through a 
year; the fall of Emessa, and of Heliopolis, or Balbec; the new 
victory gained over the Greeks on the banks of the Hieromax, 
or Yermuk, in November, 636, were followed by the attack on 
Jerusalem, where the rival religions seemed to be brought into 
more immediate hostility; for the whole of Christendom had 
their eyes turned towards the holy city, and regarded the spot, 
sanctified by the life and sufferings of Christ, and, above all, by 
the Holy Sepulchre, as the outward pledges of the triumph of 
his religion. During a siege of four months, the religious enthu- 
siasm of the besieged kept pace with that of the assailants; the 
walls were thickly planted with crosses, banners blessed by the 
priests, and miraculous images. But all this zeal was vain and 
impotent. Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, who directed the 
efforts of the besieged, was constrained to offer to capitulate. 
He, however, refused to open the gates of the city until the kha- 
liph Omar, the commander of the faithful, should come in per- 
son to receive so precious a deposite, and to guaranty the capi- 
tulation by his word. Jerusalem, equally sacred in the eyes of 
Musulmans as in those of Christians, appeared to the vetemn 



2r4 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XIV. 

companions of Mahommed to be a fit object, to the khaliph, of a 
pious pilgrimage. He set out: the same camel which bore the 
sovereign of Arabia and a great part of Syria and Persia was 
also laden with all his baggage 5 namely, a sack of wheat, a bas- 
ket of dates, a wooden bowl, and a skin of water. When he 
came in sight of Jerusalem, the khaliph exclaimed, *' God and 
victorious Lord, grant us a victory unstained with blood!" His 
attendants pitched his tent of camel's hair cloth^ he sat down 
on the earthy and there he signed the capitulation by which he 
promised to leave the Christians not only the full enjoyment of 
liberty of conscience, but the undisputed possession of the church 
of the Holy Sepulchre. Having completed this act, he entered 
the city without precaution and without fear, discoursing with 
the patriarch by the way. He declined the invitation of the 
latter to offer up his devotions in the church of the Christians, 
lest his compliance might be quoted as a precedent by his suc- 
cessors, who might resort thither to pray, and thus invade the 
exclusive property in the temple which he had just guarantied 
to the Christians. He laid the foundation of a magnificent 
mosque on the ruins of the temple of Solomon^ and at the expi- 
ration of ten days he returned in the same simple and unosten- 
tatious manner to Medina, where he passed the remainder of his 
life in offering up his devotions at the tomb of the prophet. 

The submission of Jerusalem to the Musulman arms is dated 
about the year 637, that of Antioch and Aleppo during the cam- 
paign of 638. At the same time Heraclius, who had not ap- 
peared at the head of the army, secretly fled from a province 
which he did not dare to defend, and which he had no hope of 
revisiting. Escaping by a feint from his courtiers and his sol- 
diers, he embarked with a few friends for Constantinople. His 
eldest son Constantine, who commanded at Csesarea, fled as 
soon as he heard of the emperor's departuref and the army un- 
der his command dispersed, or went over to the ranks of the 
enemy. Tyre and Tripoli were given up to the Arabs by trea- 
chery, and the remaining cities of Syria opened their gates by 
capitulation. Abu Obeidah, who dreaded for the victors the 
luxurious delights of Antioch, would not permit his soldiers to 
remain there more than three daysj but the aged khaliph, who 
was austere to himself alone, regretted that the Musulmans 
had not enjoyed a little more of the fruits of their victories. 
«' God has not forbidden," he wrote to his general, " the 



CHAP. XIV.] CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM. 2T5 

use of the good things of this world to true believers and those 
who practise good works: you ought, therefore, to have granted 
them longer repose, and have allowed them to partake of the en- 
joyments the country offers. Every Saracen who has not a fa- 
mily in Arabia is at liberty to marry in Syria; and all are per- 
mitted to buy as many female slaves as they may need." 

A contagious disease, which attacked the Musulmans shortly 
after the conquest of Syria, disabled them from taking advantage 
of the khaliph's indulgence. By this malady they lost twenty- 
five thousand effective troops; and among them their leader, Abu 
Obeidah. The valiant warrior who had seconded him, and who 
in all moments of difficulty and danger assumed the command, 
which he afterwards surrendered back to his chief, Khaled, ' the 
Sword of God,' died three years later at Emessa. 

The conquest of Persia, which Khaled had commenced, had 
been followed up by other Saracen generals. Yezdegerd, grand- 
son of Chosroes, who had ascended the throne in 632, and whose 
reign has been rendered famous, not for any personal merit he 
displayed, but from its relation to an astronomical cycle, was at- 
tacked by an army of thirty thousand Musulmans. The battle 
of Cadesia, a place sixty leagues from Bagdad, decided the fate 
of the Persian monarchy, (a. d. 636.) It lasted three whole 
days, and the Saracens lost seven thousand five hundred men: 
but the Persian army was annihilated, the standard of the mo- 
narchy was carried off; the fertile province of Assyria, or Irak, 
was conquered, and the possession of it guarantied by the foun- 
dation of Basra, or, as Europeans called it, Bussora, on the Eu- 
phrates, below its junction with the Tigris, twelve leagues from 
the sea. Seyd, general of the Musulmans, afterwards advanced 
beyond the Tigris, in the month of March, 637. He entered 
Madain, or Ctesiphon, the capital of Persia, by assault; and the 
accumulated treasures of ages were abandoned to the Musulman 
plunderers. The conquerors, dissatisfied with the site of the 
ancient capital, founded a new one, to which they gave the name 
of Kufah, on the right bank of the Euphrates. Yezdegerd, 
however, who had taken refuge in the mountains, kept together 
for some time the wrecks of the Persian empire; but, after a se- 
ries of defeats, just as he was in the act of entreating a miller 
to transport him in his boat across a river on the last fron- 
tier of his kingdom, he was overtaken by some Musulman horse- 
men, and slain, a. d. 651, the nineteenth year of his disastrous 



£76 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV. 

reign. With him expired the second Persian dynasty, that of 
the Sassanides. 

Syria and Persia had been but feebly defended by the Chris- 
tians and the Magi. Egypt was voluntarily given up by the Copts, 
who, severed from the dominant church by the dispute concerning 
the two natures and the two wills of Christ, preferred the yoke 
of the Musulmans to the persecution of the orthodox. Long before 
their surrender, even during the lifetime of Maliommed, they had 
entered into a negotiation with the Arabs, their neighbours^ but 
the latter, full of the ideas they had imbibed from their assiduous 
study of the books of the Old Testament, estimated the glory and 
power of Egypt rather by the grandeur ascribed to the Pharaohs, 
than by their own eyes. Omar, urged by the valiant Amru, one 
of the warriors who had contributed the most powerfully to the 
conquest of Syria, had given his consent to the invasion of Egypt. 
He, however, quickly repented the having sanctioned so daring 
an enterprise, and despatched a courier after Amru, who was 
advancing across the desert with no more than four thousand 
soldiers, ordering him to retrace his steps, if he was still within 
the confines of Syria; but to regard the die as cast, and boldly to 
pursue his way, if he had already crossed the frontiers of Egypt. 
Amru, distrusting the irresolution of his sovereign, would not 
open the letter until he was actually on the enemy's soil. He 
then assembled a council of war, and took all the chiefs to witness 
that the orders of the khaliph, no less than those of Heaven, bound 
him to continue his march. It was in the month of June, 638; 
and Pelusium, which surrendered after a month's siege, opened 
to the Saracens the entrance to the country. 

The Romans had transported the seat of government in Egypt 
to Alexandria; and Memphis, the ancient capital, not far from 
the Pyramids, had sunk to the rank of a secondary city; neverthe- 
less, its population was still very considerable, and, as the Greeks 
inhabited Alexandria by preference, Memphis had remained al- 
most exclusively an Egyptian or Coptic city. It was before this 
city that Amru appeared in the summer of 638, or rather before 
the suburb of Babylon, or Mizrah, which was on the right bank of 
the river and on the Arab side; while the ancient Memphis, as 
well as the Pyramids, were on the left or Libyan side. The siege 
was protracted through seven months, during which period Amru 
renewed his negotiations with the Coptic Monothelites and their 
general Mokawkas. A tribute of two pieces of gold for every man 



CH AP. XIV.] SIEGE OF ALEXANDRIA. 277' 

above the age of sixteen was the price paid for entire liberty of 
conscience. Benjamin, the patriarch of the Jacobites, came forth 
out of the desert to pay homage to the conqueror^ throughout the 
whole province to the south of Memphis the Copts took arms, 
attacked the Greeks and their clergy, massacred a great number 
of them, and put the remainder to flight. The antique Memphis 
at length opened her gates; but the victorious Saracens preferred 
the suburb of Mizrah as a residence, on account of its greater 
proximity to their own country. They gave it the name of Ka- 
hira,* or the city of victory. The population insensibly passed 
over from the left to the right bank of the river for the sake of 
being near the caravans which arrived from the desert; and the 
ancient city of Sesostris was soon little more than a city of tombs. 
The conquest of Egypt could be secured only by that of the 
Delta, whither all the fugitive Greeks from the valley of the Nile 
had retired; and by that of Alexandria, the secand city of the 
world for population and for wealth. 

The port of this metropolis, op'en to the Greek navy, might re- 
ceive constant re-enforcements, and introduce hostile armies into 
the heart of the country; whilst tlie inhabitants, inflamed with re- 
ligious zeal, and exasperated by the treachery they liad just expe- 
rienced from the Copts, were ready to afford powerful assistance 
to the garrison. Amru led the Musulman army across the Delta, 
where his valour displayed itself in daily combats. He laid siege 
to the city, the circumference of which was, at that time, ten 
miles: but as it is defended on one side by the sea, and on the 
other by the lake Mareotis, the ramparts exposed to attack did 
not exceed two miles and a half in length, at the utmost. For 
fourteen months the siege was carried an with a fury rarely pa- 
ralleled in the history of warfare. Amru was carried off* by the 
besieged in one of their sorties, but was not recognised. His 
haughty demeanour, however, began to excite suspi<iion, when a 
slave, who had been taken prisoner with his master, with singular 
presence of mind, hit him a blow on the face and bade him hold 
his tongue in the presence of his superiors. He then despatched 
him to the Mu&ulman camp, under pretext of obtaining money 
for his own ransom. The simplicity of the early associates of the 
prophet rendered it impossible to distinguish the highest from the 
lowest by their dress, and the slave of Amru easily passed for his 
master. 
* The Italians, from whom we adopted it, cormpted this to Cairo. — TVaml 

36 



278 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV. 

At length, on the 22d of December, a. d. 640, the Musulmans 
found an entrance into Alexandria, while the Greeks took to their 
ships, and evacuated the capital of Egypt. 

" I have taken," said Amru, in his despatch to the khaliph, 
" the great city of the west. It would be impossible for me to 
describe all its grandeur, all its beauty. Let it suffice you to hear 
that it contains.four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four 
hundred theatres or places of amusement: twelve thousand shops 
for the sale of vegetables alone, fit for the food of man, and forty 
thousand tributary Jews. The city has been taken by force of 
arms, without treaty or capitulation, and the Musulmans are im- 
patient to seize the fruits of victory. " 

But the virtuous Omar steadfastly refused to grant the license 
for pillage which seemed to be thus demanded of him. A census 
was taken of the inhabitants. All those who remained faithful to 
their ancient religion, whether Jacobites or Melchites (i. e. ortho- 
dox,) obtained, on payment of the annual tribute, the liberty of 
conscience guarantied by the laws of the prophet. The number, 
however, of the converts who adopted the faith of the conquerors, 
— thus passing from dependence to power, from poverty to wealth, 
— was very great in this province, as well as in all others, and 
abundantly compensated for the losses suffered by the conquering 
army, although twenty-three thousand Musulmans had perished 
in the seige. Yet the mass of the population remained Christian; 
and even now, after twelve ages of oppression, the Coptic church 
in Upper Egypt, and the Greek in Alexandria, are not entirely 
annihilated. 

It will, doubtless, be asked, why I pass over in silence an event 
more celebrated than the conquest of Egypt itself; the sentence 
pronounced by Omar against the Alexandrian library — *' These 
books are useless if they contain only the word of God; they are 
pernicious if they contain any thing else;" — and the four thousand 
baths of Alexandria, heated for six months with the manuscripts 
which contained all the learning of the ancient world. But this 
marvellous history was related, for the first time, six centuries 
later, by Abulfaraj, on the confines of Media. The earlier and 
Christian historians, Eutychius and Elmacin, make no mention 
of it whatever. It is in direct opposition to the precepts of the 
Koran, and to the profound veneration of the Musulmans for 
every scrap of paper on which the name of God may chance to be 
written. Moreover, the ancient library collected by the magnifi- 



CHAP. XIV.] EARLY KHALIPHS. £79 

cence of the Ptolemies had long before been destroyed, nor have 
we any evidence that it had been replaced at any later period. 

Heraclius, who had outlived both his power and his glory, 
learned at Constantinople the loss of Alexandria. This was the 
last calamity of his reign. He died fifty days after, on the 11th 
of February, 641. 

During the reigns of the first two khaliphs, reigns signalized by 
such brilliant conquests, the Saracens had lost nothing of the en- 
thusiasm with which their prophet had inspired them. No private 
ambition, no jealousy, no personal interest or passion, had as yet 
alloyed that zeal for enlarging the kingdom of God which turned 
all their efforts towards war, and made them meet martyrdom 
with as much exultation as victory. The commanders of armies, 
born in free Arabia, accustomed to complete independence of 
mind and will, while they rendered implicit obedience, felt not 
that they were subject to a master; they made no use of their will, 
simply because it was so perfectly in conformity with that of their 
chief; because the execution of his orders was no act of submis- 
sion or concession. But Omar, though younger than Mahommed, 
had passed his seventieth year at the close of his reign. His con- 
temporaries, or even those who had been formed under him, were 
no longer in the vigour of their age; a new generation had arisen 
in the government and in the army. It had, above all, been re- 
cruited from conquered countries, and though it still shared that 
religious enthusiasm which is fostered and excited in great as- 
semblages of men, it already introduced into Islamism a new 
character and new ambitions. 

The two khaliphs who succeeded, formed, like their predeces- 
sors, in the intimate society of the prophet; like them, purely 
Arab, and residing constantly at Medina, preserved, unmingled, 
the pure and ardent faith, and the simplicity of manners, which 
he had implanted and prescribed; but while the two earlier, 
Abubekr and Omar, who, in accordance with their age, were in- 
debted to this simplicity for their most brilliant successes, the 
two latter, Othman and Ali, whose contemporaries no longer re- 
sembled them, who were surrounded by men who understood 
them not, and whom they did not understand, introduced confu- 
sion and civil war into this government, so remarkable for its 
simplicity. After them, when Ali had been succeeded by Moa- 
viah, the seat of empire was transferred from Medina to Damas- 
cus; oriental despotism succeeded to the liberty of the desert; 



280 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. []cHAP. XIV. 

fanaticism was still kept alive in the army, but a new principle 
of government guided the prudence or concealed the vices of the 
Ommiades. 

In the twelfth year of his reign Omar was mortally wounded 
by an assassin, who sought to revenge some private injury. The 
khaliph might have endeavoured to bequeath his power to his son; 
he might, too, have tried to transmit his throne to Ali, son of 
Abu Taleb, who, as representative of the elder branch of the Ko- 
reishites, as husband of Fatima, the beloved daughter of Mahom- 
med, and as decorated from his earliest youth with the title of 
Vizir of the Prophet, seemed to combine every claim to the suf- 
frages of the Musulraans. Omar would not take upon himself 
the responsibility of so mighty a decision. He nominated six of 
the veteran companions of Mahommed, to whom he left the elec- 
tion. He died on the 6th of November, 644. 

The choice of these representatives of Islamism fell on Othman, 
who had been Mahommed's secretary. He had already attained 
to extreme age, and w as incapable of supporting the burden laid 
upon him. Yet during his reign, which lasted eleven years, from 
644 to 655, the Musulmans completed the subjugation of Persia; 
they extended their conquests into Cilicia as far as the Euxine; 
some of their armies traversed Asia Minor, and menaced Con- 
stantinople^ others repulsed two Greek expeditions which tried 
to effect a landing in Egypt, and, in the year 617, they advanced 
as far as Tripoli in Africa. Yet all these conquests did not suf- 
fice to maintain the glory they had acquired during the twelve 
preceding years. Othman, deceived in the objects of his choice, 
betrayed by those he trusted, vainly lavishing the treasures of 
the state without securing partisans, was assailed at Medina by 
the complaints of the people. A new sect, the Charegites, (Kha- 
radjis,) demanded complete liberty, which, they pretended, could 
be surrendered only to the inspirations of the prophet, and be- 
longed of right to every Arab and to every Musulman. The 
armies even drew nigh; they encamped within a league of Me- 
dina; and sent to summon the aged khaliph either to administer 
justice better, or to descend from the post of commander of the 
faithful. The guards deserted the gates of the city and of the 
palace; and, after some hesitation, assassins, headed by a son of 
Abubekr, the brother of Ayesha, who, though the youngest of 
Mahommed's wives, was now called the mother of the faithful, 
poniarded Othman on his throne, while he covered his heart with 
the Koran, 



CHAP. XIV.J OTHMAN. ALL 281 

All had had no part in the murder of Omar or of Othman. 
Respected by the Musulmans as the favourite, the son-in-law, 
and the father of the sole descendants of the prophet, he had, 
nevertheless, been rejected in the three preceding elections, and 
had been kept back from a station which he regarded as his of 
right. At the death of Othman, on the 18th of June, 655, all 
the Koreishites declared in his favour. Ali was proclaimed kha- 
liph by the majority of the Arabs^ but the commanders of the 
Musulman armies would no longer acknowledge those peaceful 
chiefs, whose functions were more than half religious, and who 
had shared neither their perils nor their victories ^ and Ayesha, 
who had always been jealous of Ali, and had had a great share 
in the troubles of the preceding reign, instigated the soldiers to 
defend their independence by arms. 

Ali had preserved all the simplicity of manners of the first con- 
verts to Islamism. At the hour of prayer he repaired to the 
mosque on foot, clad in a light garment of cotton, with a coarse 
turban on his head, carrying his sandals in his hand, and leaning 
on his bow instead of a staJBT. Renowned among the Musulmans 
as a saint, a poet, and a warrior; as the faithful husband of Fa- 
tima, who had survived her father but nine months; as the father 
of Hassan and Hossein, whom the prophet had often held upon 
his knees; he had lost nothing of his valour during the twenty- 
four years he had passed in repose at the tomb of Mahommed: 
but he soon gave occasion to think that his prudence was not 
equal to his high reputation. He had given some disgust to Tal- 
ha and Zobeir, two of the most valiant Arab chiefs, who raised 
the standard of revolt against him at Mecca, usurped the govern- 
ment of Basra and of Assyria, and invited Ayesha to repair to 
their camp. Ali marched against them to the walls of Basra. 
A terrible battle, in which he suffered from great inferiority of 
numbers, took place between the two armies, in one of w^hich 
was seen the son-in-law, in the other the widow of Mahommed. 
Ayesha, after riding along the ranks, remained, seated in a pa- 
lanquin, or covered chair, borne on the back of a camel, in the 
midst of the fight. Seventy men were killed or wounded while 
in the act of driving the camel, which gave its name to this, the 
first battle fought between Musulmans, and celebrated as the 
Battle of the, Camel. Ali was at length victorious. Ayesha, 
though a prisoner, was led back with honour to the tomb of the 
prophet. 



282 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV 

At the same time, Moaviah, son of Abu Sophyan, the ancient 
rival of Mahommed, had been chosen khaliph in Syria. The 
command of that province had been delegated to him by Omar, 
and had been equally marked by moderation and by valour. On 
the news of the death of Othman he had declared himself the 
avenger of the commander of the faithful; he displayed his 
blood-stained garments in the mosque of Damascus; and sixty 
thousand Arabs, or converted Syrians, had sworn to follow his 
standard. Amru, the conqueror of Egypt, and the most justly 
celebrated among the Musulman generals, was the first to salute 
Moaviah with the title of khaliph. Ali marched against him: all 
the forces of the conquerors of Asia were collected; and, if we 
may believe the Arabian historians, (too prone, indeed, to seek 
to astonish rather than to instruct the reader,) the two armies re- 
mained face to face for nearly a twelvemonth. Ninety battles 
were fought: forty-five thousand men perished on the side of 
Moaviah, twenty-five thousand on that of Ali. At length the 
whole body of the Musulmans demanded that, in conformity 
with the law of the Koran, the two rivals should refer their dis- 
pute to the decision of two arbitrators. The two khaliphs sub- 
mitted to the will of the army. Ali returned to Kufah on the 
Euphrates, Moaviah to Damascus; and their two representatives, 
Abu Musa and Amru, were left to decide which of the two was 
to retain the dignity of commander of the faithful. To depose 
both, and elect a third, seemed to be the most impartial course. 
Upon this the umpires agreed, and Abu Musa announced to the 
people that Ali had ceased to be khaliph; when Amru, outwit- 
ting his colleague, instantly declared that Moaviah consequently 
remained in undisputed possession of the khaliphate. From this 
act of treachery dates the schism which still exists between the 
Shiahs and the Sunnis. The former, and more especially the 
Persians, regard the deposition of Ali as illegal, and even the 
succession of the three khaliphs who intervened between him 
and Mahommed. The latter, and especially the Turks, esteem 
the succession of Moaviah as legitimate from that time. 

Civil war broke out afresh, and continued until the end of the 
reign of Ali, a. d. 656 — 661. The empire founded on such a 
long course of victories seemed on the point of crumbling to 
ruin. Three Kharadjis, or fanatics of the sect which incessant- 
ly inveighed against the usurpation of power, which they claimed 
as the property of the whole nation, resolved to devote their 



CHAP. XIV.] CIVIL WAR.— ALL MOAVIAH. 283 

lives for the simultaneous destruction of the three men who 
caused the greatest eflfusion of Musulman blood. The two 
fanatics who were appointed to assassinate Amru and Moaviah 
were arrested 5 Ali fell under the dagger of the third, on the 
24th of January, 661. He was 63 years of age. 

Hassan, the eldest son of Ali, and grandson of the prophet, 
was recognised by the sect of the Shiahs as successor to his fa- 
therj but being of an unambitious temper, and desirous of put- 
ting an end to the civil wars which had already caused the effu- 
sion of such torrents of blood, he entered into a treaty with Mo- 
aviah, and, at the end of six months, renounced all claim to the 
khaliphate. 

The zeal of Moaviah was not so disinterested as that of his 
predecessors. During a reign of twenty years, which extended 
into extreme old age, he healed the wounds inflicted on the Mu- 
sulman empire by civil war, and turned the arms of the faithful 
once more against those whom they called infidels — against the 
Turks beyond the Oxus, and against the Christians in Asia Mi- 
nor and Africa. For seven years his troops laid siege to Con- 
stantinople, while other armies traversed Libya, and founded the 
new capital of that province called Kairwan,* at twelve miles 
from the sea and fifty from Tunis. But the conquests of the 
Musulmans were no longer undertaken with the sole view of ex- 
tending the reign of the Koran; they now served to establish the 
supremacy of a new sovereign family, which united the despotic 
habits of the ancient monarchs of the East to the fanaticism of 
new sectaries. Moaviah had quitted Arabia to return no more: 
he preferred the abject submission and servile habits of the Sy- 
rians to the haughty independence of the Bedouins. He suc- 
ceeded in causing his voluptuous son Yezid to be acknowledged 
as his colleague, thus securing his succession by anticipation; 
and this transmission of power being once admitted, the lieute- 
nancy of the prophet became hereditary in the family of Abu 
Sophyan, his earliest and most inveterate enemy. 

The Fatimides, the descendants of Ali and of the daughter 
of Mahommed, had neither wished to excite a civil war, nor 
chose to recognise what they regarded as a usurpation, nor to 
cease to combat for the true faith. Hossein, All's second son, 
had served in the second siege of Constantinople. But, when 

* Called, by Gibbon and others, Cairoan. — Transl 



284 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIV. 

the vices of Yezid taught the Musulmans the weight and the in- 
famy of the new yoke imposed upon them, Hossein, who had re- 
tired to Medina, lent an ear to the overtures of a party who de- 
clared their desire of restoring the sovereignty to the blood of the 
prophet and the race of the Koreishites. A hundred and forty 
thousand men, it was affirmed, were ready to draw the sword in 
his cause. Hossein crossed the desert with a small troop of 
friends devoted to his family; but, on arriving on the frontiers of 
Assyria, he found that the insurrection in his favour had been 
already suppressed, and that he was hemmed in on every side by 
enemies. Retreat was impossible; submission appeared to him 
unworthy of his name and lineage. In vain did he exhort his 
friends to provide for their own safety; not one would desert 
him. Thirty-two horsemen and forty foot soldiers resolved to 
face the whole army of Obeidallah, the governor of Kufah, with 
the full knowledge that it had five thousand horse alone. But 
there was not a single Musulman who did not tremble at the 
thought of laying hands on the son of Ali, the grandson of the 
prophet. Not onfe dared to stand the charge of the Fatimides. 
They had not, however, the same scruple in attacking them from 
a distance with their arrows, because they could not distinguish 
upon whom their strokes alighted. Every soul of the Fatimides 
perished. Hossein was killed the last — supporting in his arms 
his son and his nephew, wounded and expiring. Thus, on the 
10th of October, 680, was the family of Mahommed crushed in 
the very empire of which he was the founder. Hossein, how- 
ever, left a son, whose posterity, down to the ninth generation, 
furnished the imams, or high priests of Islamism, who are to this 
day the object of veneration to the Persians, and whom the kha- 
liphs of the race of the Ommiades did not dare to persecute in 
the free land of Arabia. 



( 285 ) 



CHAPTER XV. 



Reigns of the Successors of Moaviah unworthy of notice. — Extinction of 
the Ommiades. — Line of the Abbasides. — Splendour of the Palace of 
Bagdad contrasted with the Simplicity of the early Khaliphs. — Change in 
the Musulman Nation. — Character of the Syrians, Persians, and Egyp- 
tians.-^-Influence of the Mahommedan Religion. — Cultivation of Science 
and Letters among the Arabs. — Energy excited by tlie Doctrines of Ma- 
hommed. — Simultaneous Attacks on the East and West of Europe under 
the Ommiades. — State of the Greek Empire after the Death of Herachus. 
— His Successors. — Constans II. — Constantine Pogonatus. — Invention of 
the Greek Fire. — Consequent Defeat of the Saracens. — Justinian II. — 
His Atrocities. — Second Attack on Constantinople, under Moslemah. — 
Leo the Isaurian. — His Character. — His successful Defence. — Constantine 
Copronymus. — Conquests of the Saracens in the West. — Africa. — Final 
Destruction of Carthage. — Subjugation and Conversion of the Moors. — 
Introduction of the Saracens into Spain. — Visigothic Kings and People. — 
Rodrigo. — Insult offered to Count Julian. — His Revenge. — Landing of 
Tarik. — Defeat of Rodrigo. — Successes of Musa. — Dangerous Position 
of France.^ — Her internal Condition.— Conquest of Narbonne by Zama. — 
Defeat of Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine. — Victories of Abderrahman. — 
Charles Le Martel.— Battle of the Plain of Poictiers. — Great Defeat of 
the Saracens, a. d. 661—750. 

We have thought it expedient to follow out, with uninterrupt- 
ed attention, the history of the author of one of the mightiest 
revolutions that ever changed the face of the world | we have 
also endeavoured to make the reader acquainted with his first 
disciples, those warrior apostles who so strangely blended in 
themselves the austerest virtues of the anchoret with the bound- 
less ambition of the usurper^ but having shown how the empire 
of the khaliphs was founded | having reached the period when 
the palace of Damascus was given up to an hereditary line of 
voluptuous princes, who were strangers to their troops, and 
whose reigns are as little marked by political wisdom as by va- 
lour, we shall not bestow on the quickly forgotten names of Ye- 
zid, Moaviah II., Mervan, Abdul-Malek, and Valid, a degree of 
care and examination which has been denied to the almost do- 
mestic history of the Merovingian kings, or those of the Lom- 
bards and Burgundians. It will be sufficient to state that, after 
the elevation of Moaviah, which (a. d. 661) placed on the throne 
that branch of the family of the Koreisl\ites which was called, 

37 



£86 TALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. ^CHAP. XV. 

after his grandfather, the house of the Ommiades, fourteen kha- 
liphs reigned successively, during a space of ninety years, in the 
palace of Damascus, until, in the year 750, Mervan II. was de- 
posed and put to death by Abul Abbas al Saffah, who descended 
from Abbas, the uncle of Mahommed. With him commenced 
the reign of the dynasty of the Abbasides, rendered illustrious 
by the foundation of Bagdad, where it fixed its residence, as 
well as by the generous protection it extended to letters. 

Nothing, however, in the palace of the khaliphs was calculated 
to remind the observer of any connexion between the objects 
before him and the founder of an austere religion; nothing be- 
tokened it as the dwelling of the representatives of a prophet, 
whose mode of life had never deviated from the simplicity of the 
poorest Bedouin. A numerous guard, bedizened with gold and 
bristling with steel, kept watch at the gate; the apartments with- 
in were decorated with every ornament that wealth and luxu- 
rious art could procure; every delicacy of the most sumptuous 
table was sought for, to gratify the palate of the commander of 
the faithful; and when he travelled, four hundred camels were 
hardly sufficient to carry even the apparatus of his kitchen. 
Seven thousand eunuchs M^ere employed in attendance on his 
person, or as a guard to his women. The khaliph made it an 
invariable rule to appear at the great mosque for prayer, and to 
preach there on Friday, the day which the Musulmans devote to 
public worship; but this was the only occasion on which he pre- 
sented himself to the people, and he was then accompanied with 
all the pomp of royalty. The rest of his life was passed in the 
Paradise of Damascus, — the name given by the people of the 
East to the gardens of the palace,— in the midst of gushing wa- 
ters, under fresh and leafy shades, and breathing an air loaded 
with perfume. 

But whilst the character of the sovereigns was utterly changed, 
the still recent nation of Musulmans retained that impelling 
spirit of activity and energy which seemed to promise them the 
mastery of the world; and which would soon have enabled them 
to complete their conquest, if they had not been abandoned by 
their chiefs. This absolute transformation of the eastern na- 
tions, effected in so short a space of time, and invested with a 
character as permanent as it was opposite to that which they had 
hitherto exhibited, is one of the wonders of the middle ages most 
deserving attention. The house of the Ommiades was never be- 



CHAP. XV.] SYRIANS, PERSIANS, EGYPTIANS. 287 

loved nor zealously served by the Arabs; its armies, therefore, 
were composed of the new converts, the Syrians, the Persians, 
and the Egyptians. But, during the fifteen hundred years that 
these nations had been acting a prominent part on the theatre of 
the world, and had been rendered conspicuous by the light of 
history, there had been time to ascertain their character. It had 
been subjected to various trials by the different governments and 
religions of the ancient Egyptians and Persians; by those of the 
Greeks who succeeded Alexander, of the Romans, and of the 
Christian Greeks. They had ever exhibited the same supersti- 
tion and pusillanimity; the same eager readiness to believe the 
marvellous; the same proneness to pollute their worship with 
every extravagance, and to enervate their souls by unrestrained 
indulgence in sensual pleasure. Suddenly they embraced with 
enthusiastic ardour a religion which interposes an abyss of sepa- 
ration between the God of spirits and his earthly creatures, which 
rejects all anthropomorphism, every outward image, every thing 
in religious worship that can move the imagination through the 
senses; which recognises no miracle, and seeks aid from above 
by prayer alone; which looks for divine protection, but guaran- 
ties it not by the assurance of prophecy, nor regards success or 
defeat as a judgment from Heaven: — a religion whose only pon- 
tiff is the chief of the state, whose only priests are officers of 
law; but which, nevertheless, for ages, maintained itself unim- 
paired. If, however, it ultimately became corrupt, this is to be 
attributed, not to the dispositions of the people, apparently so 
contrary to its spirit, but to the vices of the government; to the 
pernicious influence of a despotism which it had neither incul- 
cated nor sanctioned, but which the prodigious extension of the 
military power it fostered had rendered triumphant. 

The rapid transformation of the pusillanimous Syrians into 
valiant Musulmans may be looked upon as a most brilliant ex- 
ample of the advantages a legislator may derive from that thirst 
for knowledge and improvement, that love of action, inherent in 
man; and which, once aroused by a laudable object, suffices to 
itself, and becomes its own reward. The enjoyment of repose 
is as nothing compared with that which accompanies a sense of 
progression; the mere preservation of existence ceases to be re- 
garded as a good, when contrasted with its development. The 
aged, who live in the past, may entreat that their long-formed 
habits should not be interfered with, and that no fresh efforts 



288 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

should be required of them; and thus do nations, grown old in 
reverence for the very weaknesses of their chiefs, often believe 
that the enjoyments of the moment would be disturbed by any 
activity, and that all change is hostile to happiness. But the 
young who echo these doctrines, so unsuited to their age, do not 
know themselves. Teach them to think and to act, and they 
will soon find the most intense enjoyments, whether social or 
sensual, worthless, in comparison with the new life they acquire 
from the culture and exercise of all their powers. The memory 
of every man who has withdrawn from scenes of vanity or of 
vice, turns back with intense satisfaction to those moments of 
danger, perhaps even of distress, when his soul put forth its 
whole strength; when he learned to know the treasure he pos- 
sessed within himself; when he discovered all his courage, his 
patience, his industry, his force of comprehension, his activity. 

Mahommed had stimulated the nations of the East both to 
think and to act; and the enjoyment of thought and action was 
as lively and as deep as it was new to them. To attempt, upon 
the ruins of polytheism, or of that gross superstition which, in 
the East, supplanted Christianity, whilst adopting its name, to 
establish a purely spiritual religion, which should give the sim- 
plest and most abstract idea of the Deity, it was necessary to 
call to his aid the whole power of reason; especially as he did 
not support his mission by miracles, and as his disciples, what- 
ever their enthusiasm, received no other testimony of the divini- 
ty of his mission than his own eloquence. In fact, Mahommed, 
in his conferences at the Kaaba with the merchants, travellers, 
and pilgrims from all parts of Arabia, exhorted them most ear- 
nestly to reflect, to descend into their own hearts, to examine 
their ancient creed by the light of reason; and, from the immen- 
sity of his works, from the contemplation of all that is pure in 
human nature, to rise to the knowledge of the Divine Being. 
The meditation of many years, and perfect familiarity with the 
arguments, had elevated the reasoning powers of the oratt)r to 
a superiority over those of his antagonists; and his eloquence on 
the subject which singly engrossed his attention almost out- 
stripped his thoughts; so that it seemed to himself, as it must 
have appeared to others, the work of inspiration. When these 
discourses were afterwards collected, and revered as oracles as- 
signing the limits of faith, of m.orals, and of justice, the effect 
they produced on the posterity of his followers was of a nature 



CHAP. XV.] INFLUENCE OF MAHOMMEDANISM. 289 

diametrically opposite to that which they had worked upon him- 
self and his immediate disciples. They had habituated the new- 
ly converted Musulmans to reflection j they accustomed their de- 
scendants to a subjection of their reason to authority: for the 
former, they had overthrown long-standing barriers; for the lat- 
ter, they had built up new ones: and to the Musulmans, as to 
other religionists, the time was come, when the depositories of 
the revelations which formed the basis of their creed interdicted 
the only exercise of the mind which leads to genuine faith- 
inquiry. But, at the time when the religion of Islam was 
founded, whilst it was spreading with such rapid progress, the 
Musulman was not content with simply assenting to the new 
truths which had freed his mind from the errors of idolatry, he 
made them a subject of incessant meditation; he strove to fur- 
nish himself with arguments for their exposition; to strengthen 
them by his eloquence, as well as to spread them by his sword. 
The prayers which he repeated five times a day gave fervour to 
his meditations, without varying their object. Religious oratory 
constituted a study no less important to the general of the army 
than the art of war: every believer might in his turn occupy the 
pulpit, when he was filled with his sacred subject and believed 
himself inspired: and as political and religious duties were not 
separated, the constant mixture of the most sublime meditations 
with the counsels of worldly prudence, addressed to a nation or 
an army, gave to the eloquence of the Arabs a character alto- 
gether peculiar. 

We find, accordingly, that the progress of eloquence and poe- 
try among the Arabs was not less rapid than that of their con- 
quests. A nation whose prophet, whose legislator, could not 
write, was, at the end of a century, the only one vi^hich displayed 
the least activity in the world of letters; the only one labouring 
in the field of discovery; the only one perpetually striving to in- 
crease the stock of human science, of which the Greeks and the 
Romans seemed the natural conservators, but which they aban- 
doned to destruction. It is impossible to tell what point would 
have been reached by the ardent genius of a people of the south, 
who darted onward in their career with such vigour, if it had not 
been checked by political impediments, and held in thraldom by 
the jealousy of power. 

Mahommed established neither liberty nor despotism: accus- 
tomed to the former, he desired not to alarm the latter by deci- 



290 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

sions wholly at variance with it^ but a man of genius, at a time 
when he is laying the foundations of an empire, when he is direct- 
ing a mighty revolution, submits with difficulty to the republican 
forms which cramp his conceptions, and thwart the execution of his 
grandest projects. These forms give us the expression of the 
will and of the wisdom of an average of mankind: a power ema- 
nating from the people, and accurately representing them, must 
eventually effect the triumph of what may be called the common 
sense of nations, — of that degree of reason and instruction which 
are generally diffused among them. But this common sense is 
no less superior to the common sense of the average of kings, to 
the depravity of courts, to their indifference to national interests, 
than it is inferior to the intelligence of great men. The hero, 
who by the force of his own genius raises himself to the head of 
a nation, will wish to bequeath the welfare of that nation to the 
care of a senate, because his senate will be wiser than his son: 
but it will not be so profoundly sagacious as himself: and the truly 
great man, from a consciousness of his own genius, will strive to 
emancipate himself from laws made for those less gifted thaa him- 
self, just as a man of inferior ability will endeavour to free him- 
self from them, that he may not be the publisher of his own inca- 
pacity. Mahommed neither destroyed nor preserved the repub- 
lican institutions of Meccaj but he exalted above them the power 
of inspiration, that divine voice which must silence all the counsels 
of human prudence. He organized no political despotism^ it was 
the effect of the gift of prophecy alone. 

The first successors of Mahommed, in declaring themselves 
the directors of the prayers of the people, made no pretensions 
to the power of prophecy. They issued orders, nevertheless, in 
the name of him whose lieutenants they called themselves, and 
they were obeyed without hesitation; but it cannot be said that, 
even then, their authority was despotic. They were the organs 
of the public will: one single thought, one sole passion, absorbed 
every Musulman; every effort of their lives ought to tend — in 
fact, did tend — to establish the triumph of their faith. The first 
four khaliphs attempted nothing in their own name; they reaped 
no personal enjoyment from the immense power which they de- 
rived from a confidence reposed rather in their piety than in their 
wisdom; no jealousy was excited by the exercise of their authority, 
which, indeed, they resigned almost entirely to the delegates 
whom they deemed most worthy. The companions of Mahommed, 



CHAP. XV.] ATTACK ON THE GREEK EMPIRE. 291 

the heroes to whom the command of his armies had been given, 
could have no other end, no other projects, than those vi^hich the 
prophet himself had entertained. The exercise of their power 
was, therefore, not limited by instructions. Thej received it 
less from the khaliph than from the nation, and from religion; 
and their lowest delegates were actuated by the same common 
impulse. While they enforced the strictest discipline, they felt 
themselves free, they felt themselves sovereigns; for in executing 
their own will, they fulfilled the will of all. Thus, during the 
most brilliant epoch of the Musulman conquests, the army, urging 
forward its generals, without the check of any responsibility, un- 
restrained by any guarantee for the preservation of liberty, acted 
continually with the spirit of a republic. 

It was this universal passion, this devotion of all to the cause 
of all, which developed in a manner so brilliant, so unexpected, 
the activity of the people of the East; which inspired with so much 
courage and endurance the sons of the pusillanimous Syrians; 
which suggested to them such ingenious manoeuvres in the art of 
war; and which maintained their constancy unshaken through dan- 
ger or privation. This complete self-education, this all-pervading 
sentiment, put in action every talent, every virtue they possessed: 
rendered them happy under all the chances of war and of for- 
tune, and constituted a reward for their heroism, far more certain 
than the black-eyed houries promised them in paradise. The 
most splendid successes are the unfailing result of the gratifica- 
tion of this noblest of passions pervading a whole people. Patri- 
otism, glory, and individual happiness flourished in the army and 
on the frontiers, long after a mortal corruption had seized upon 
the centre. The obscure, inglorious khaiiphs of Damascus and 
Bagdad continued to conquer countries which they never saw, of 
which they knew not even the name, long after their government 
had become stained with all the vices of a despotic court; long 
after the most illustrious men had fallen a sacrifice to the caprices 
of the tyrant, and the election or deposition of the commanders of a 
brave soldiery was habitually the work of the vilest intrigues. The 
cause of this is to be sought in the fact, that these victorious troops 
fought, not for the khaliph, but for Islamism; that they obeyed, 
not the orders from the palace, but the dictates of their own con- 
science; that they believed themselves free, and the ministers of 
God. It was not till a considerable time after they had been 
accustomed to scenes of civil war, to treachery and baseness in 



292 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

their leaders, that they discovered they v^^ere no longer citizens, 
and therefore ceased to be men. 

During the reign of the Ommiades, the khaliphs attacked Eu- 
rope on the east and on the west at the same time, — in Greece 
and in Spain. Their victories in either country seemed at first 
to threaten their adversaries with destruction^ nor, so long as the 
struggle continued, would it have been easy to predict, that the 
issue would ultimately be favourable to Christendom. 

The Greek empire was situated just opposite to that of the 
Arabs, on the frontiers of Europe: on it, therefore, rested the 
hopes of Christendom^ no alliance, however, united it to those 
lately formed Latin states, with which it had a common interest 
in the support of religion. The Germanic nations dreamt not 
of the danger which might one day extend even to them: their 
sentiments towards the Romans, whom they had conquered, and 
had no farther occasion to fear, were those of unaltered contempt 
and hatred. The Greeks, then, were left to struggle single- 
handed with the Musulmans, and when it was seen in how short 
a time Heraclius had lost his Asiatic provinces, little confidence 
could be placed in the means of defence left to his successors. 

After the death of Heraclius, the throne of Constantinople still 
continued in his family for seventy years, (a. d. 641'— 711.) 
Constans IT., his grandson, whose reign, from the year 641 to 
668, corresponds to those of Othman, Ali, and Moaviah, or to 
the time of the first civil wars of the Musulmans, passed the 
greater part of his life at Rome and in Sicily. Some acts of ty- 
ranny, and his leaning to the monothelitic heresy, which, still 
more than his crimes, excited the hatred of the clergy, had de- 
prived him entirely of the affection of his subjects. The Lom- 
bards, at that time, suffered the Greek settlements in Italy to 
remain at peace. Constans preferred a residence in these Latin 
towns to one in a capital which only served to remind him of his 
misdeeds. He owed his safety entirely to th^ civil wars which, 
at the same moment, distracted all his enemies, the Lombards, 
the Saracens, and the Avars: he was not in a condition to resist 
any one of them. 

Nor was Constantino Pogonatus, his son, who reigned from 
668 to 685, of a character calculated to inspire a higher degree of 
confidence. Jealous of his brothers, he caused their noses to be 
cut oft; because the army, in a moment of seditious riot, had 



CHAP. XV.] GREEK FIRE. S93 

demanded that three Augustuses should rule upon earth, in like 
manner as three divine persons reigned in heaven. His govern- 
ment, as yet, was distinguished for nothing but those petty and 
base passions which seemed indigenous in the Christian seraglio 
of Constantinople. Moaviah, as soon as he had suppressed the 
first civil wars which divided Islam, (a. d. 668 — 675,) advanced 
to attack him, apparently with a view of expiating the Musul- 
man blood which Musulmans had shed. No judicious precaution 
had been taken for the defence of the capital; the Hellespont and 
the Bosphorus remained open, and a Saracen fleet, from the ports 
of Syria and Egypt, came every summer, for seven years, and 
disembarked an army of Musulmans under the walls of Constan- 
tinople. However, although the coast had not been defended, 
the fortifications of the town had been restored; the throng of 
refugees from all the provinces of Asia had increased the number 
of inhabitants, and swelled the list of defenders of the capital; 
some military habits had been acquired during their long retreat; 
the danger impending over their country and their church had 
awakened a degree of religious enthusiasm; and those, who would 
have shrunk from the fight in the open field, showed themselves 
able to defend the ramparts. 

But Constantinople was indebted for its preservation to a new and 
fortunate discovery, which chemistry accidentally opened to the 
Greeks, at a time when there was neither courage, patriotism, nor 
talent, in either commander or men, sufficient to repel so formida- 
ble an enemy. An inhabitant of Heliopolis (there were two towns 
of that name, one in Syria and the other in Egypt) named Callini- 
cus, discovered a composition of naphtha or oil of bitumen, pitch, 
and sulphur, which, once set on fire, could not be extinguished 
by water; which adhered to wood with destructive activity, and 
consumed with equal facility a single ship or a whole fleet; and 
which, when thrown on the combatants, insinuated itself between 
the joints of their armour, and destroyed them by a death of 
torture. Callinicus, a subject of the khaliphs, but a Christian, 
brought his secret to Constantinople, and used it in defence of 
Christendom. This secret was preserved till the middle of the 
fourteenth century, when it was superseded by the still more 
tremendous invention &f gunpowder. Its qualities are very im- 
perfectly known to us. The crusaders, who called the Greeks 
" Gregeois," named it " le feu Gregeois," Greek fire; while the 
Greeks themselves called it " liquid or marine fire." The prows 



294 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. XV. 

of vessels, and the ramparts of towns, were furnished with tubes, 
bj means of which this blazing oil was thrown to a great distance^ 
a piston projected it with great velocity into the air, as soon as 
it came in contact with which, it became ignited by some process 
unknown to us: the devoted victims saw it approaching in the 
form of a fiery serpent, till at last it fell in a burning shower on 
vessels and men. An hour-s fight would cover the sea with this 
flaming oil, and give it the appearance of a sheet of fire. The 
Saracen fleets were repeatedly destroyed by it, and their most 
valiant warriors, whom the near aspect of death had never daunted, 
recoiled from the terrors and the tortures of this liquid fire, which 
crept beneath their armour, and clung to every limb. 

Constantine Pogonatus thus acquired a glory he had but little 
reason to anticipate: Moaviah was not only compelled to raise 
the siege of Constantinople, but, at the close of his life, to pur- 
chase a thirty years' peace with the empire of the East, by a dis- 
graceful tribute. 

The last prince of the race of Heraclius, Justinian II., who 
succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in the month of 
September, 685, was of a character to increase the perils of the 
empire. He was only fifteen years old 5 his ferocity, kept alive 
by the influence of a eunuch and a monk, his two chief ministers 
and sole confidants, had all the activity of his time of life. He 
found enjoyment in the punishments he inflicted, and insisted on 
witnessing: the sufferings of others were to him a source of 
agreeable excitement, and his breast was inaccessible to pity for 
miseries which he had never felt nor feared. During the ten 
years from 685 to 695, the East was delivered up to the fury of 
a monster, who wanted neither talents nor courage, and who was 
well able to defend himself from the effects of the universal 
hatred which he at once deserved and defied. During the suc- 
ceeding ten years, Justinian wandered an exile among the bar- 
barous nations on the borders of the Euxine Sea. A revolution 
had hurled him from the throne^ but his successor had, with most 
imprudent lenity, spared his life, and had only mutilated his face, 
as a means of preventing his reascending the throne. In the 
year 705, however, Justinian re-entered Constantinople at the 
head of an army composed of Bulgarian peasants and of Chozars, 
a people who lived on the borders of the Don, and was again 
proclaimed emperor. A'^'hile he was in exile, the reins of govern- 
ment had been in the hands of two Augustuses, named Leontius 



CHAP. XV.] JUSTINIAN II. 295 

and Apsimar: they were dragged, loaded with chains, to the 
hippodrome; and Justinian, planting a foot on the neck of each, 
witnessed for an hour the games of the circus, thus treading un- 
der foot his victims before he consigned them over to execution. 
After his return he maintained himself on the throne for six years, 
during which his former cruelty was heightened by an implaca- 
ble spirit of revenge. This tyrant condemned to the most horri- 
ble tortures not only individuals, but v/hole towns that had in- 
curred his displeasure during his exile. At length, however, a 
new insurrection delivered the East from his power. He was 
massacred in the month of December, 711 ; and, his son and mo- 
ther being put to death with him, the race of Heraclius became 
extinct. 

The long period during which Justinian's tyranny provoked the 
revolutions which twice hurled him from the throne, was not re- 
markable for any calamities from without. The Bulgarians, a 
ferocious people of the Slavonian race, who had settled on the 
banks of the Danube, in a country which still bears their name, 
took no part in the civil wars of the Greeks, except to aid Justi- 
nian against his subjects. The Musulmans were too much en- 
gaged at home to think of attacking the empire. The Arabs, 
being unwilling to recognise the house of Moaviah, a new khaliph, 
elected at Mecca, had thence extended his sway over Persia; so 
that each of the two eastern empires was too much occupied wdth 
its own troubles to enter on a war with its ancient rival. The 
Saracens were the first to recover the free disposal of their mili- 
tary force. In the reign of Soliman, (a. d. 715,) an army of one 
hundred and twenty thousand men was sent, under the command 
of Moslemah, brother of the khaliph, to effect the conquest of 
Constantinople, which it was declared Mahommed had promised 
to the faithful, and which the Musulmans regarded as essential 
to their salvation. 

But, to meet this new danger, fortune raised to the throne of 
Constantinople a man endowed with decision of character, dis- 
tinguished talents, and an enlightened reason: this was Leo III. 
or the Isaurian, who was crowned on the 25th of March, 717, and 
reigned till 741. His crown descended to his son and grandson. 
Brought up in obscurity amid the mountains of Asia Minor, among 
a people to whom the arts of populous cities were unknown, he 
had imbibed from his countrymen the primitive aversion of the 
Jews and Christians to idols and images, the worship of which 



296 , FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

had already been for some centuries introduced into the church. 
His abhorence of idolatry, founded both on religion and on phi- 
losophy, was strengthened by the reproaches which the Greeks 
continually received from their rivals in the East, who had an in- 
vincible hatred of images. The Persians, and subsequently the 
Musulmans, while they expressed their horror of men whom they 
saw worshipping the work of their own hands, had appealed against 
the practice of the Christians to the authority of their own sacred 
books, and reproached them with a gross violation of the second 
commandment^ and, as they had at the same time overthrown the 
altars and dragged in the dirt those images to which was attri- 
buted a miraculous character; as they had successfully braved 
those thunders which, according to the priests, wete prepared 
for their defence, they had inflicted on superstition the most for- 
midable of all blows, those which affect, not the intellect, but the 
senses. A great zeal for reform was thus excited throughout the 
empire; a strong desire to return to a more pure religion suc- 
ceeded the shameful traffic of superstition which had so long dis- 
graced the clergy. Leo the Isaurian put himself at the head of this 
honourable turn of public feeling; and, for weapons to oppose 
Musulman fanaticism, had recourse to reason, philosophy, and 
the light of true Christianity. Happy if he had assailed supersti- 
tion with no other forces; or if the attacks and plots of the monks 
had not forced him into measures of persecution, that dishonoured 
the cause they wer€ intended to serve! 

The defence of Constantinople, by Leo the Isaurian, was still 
more brilliant than that of Constantine Pogonatus at the former 
siege. Before he was well established on his throne, Moslemah, 
on the 15th of July, 717, had crossed the Hellespont at the 
straits of Abydos with his numerous army, and, unfurling in 
Europe, for the first time, the banner of the prophet, he assailed 
the walls on the side of the land, at the same time that a fleet of 
eighteen hundred sail attacked them from the sea. The fleet was 
entirely destroyed by the Greek fire; and, in the next campaign, 
a second met the same fate. The emperor succeeded in turning 
the swords of his enemies against each other, and an army of 
Bulgarians assisted in the repulse of the Musulmans. Moslemah 
was at last compelled to raise the siege on the 15th of August, 
718, having sustained a loss so great as to deprive the Ommiades 
of all power of renewing the attack on the empire. Constantine 
Copronymus, son of Leo HL, obtained some victories over the 



CHAP. XV.] MUSULMAN CONqUESTS IN THE WEST. 297 

Musulmans at the beginning of his reign, but he marched to seek 
them on the banks of the Euphrates. Greece had ceased to fear 
them; and, during the whol« of the eighth century, Asia Minor 
was completely subject to the successors of the Caesars. 

The attacks of the Musulmans on the West were, at first, 
crowned with extraordinary success. The conquest of Africa 
was effected, (a. d. 665—689,) by Akbah, lieutenant of the kha- 
liph Moaviah, and of his son Yezid. Having led his victorious 
army as far as those parts which are now under the dominion of 
the emperor of Morocco, he urged his horse into the waters of 
the Atlantic, just opposite the Canary Isles, and, brandishing his 
scimitar, exclaimed, '* Great God! why is my progress checked 
by these waves? Fain would I publish, to the unexplored king- 
doms of the west, that thou art the sole God, and that Mahom- 
med is thy prophet; fain would I cut down with this sword those 
rebels who worship other gods than thee!" It was not, however, 
till after the second civil wars, from 692 to 698, that Carthage, 
the metropolis of Africa, was besieged by Hassan, governor of 
Egypt. The obstinate resistance of the Christians, their short- 
lived successes (during which, with the assistance of a Greek 
fleet, they retook some towns of which the Musulmans had made 
themselves masters,) so provoked the resentment of Hassan, that, 
on re-entering Carthage by storm, he gave up that beautiful city 
to the flames. The former rival of Rome was finally and utterly 
destroyed. A great number of the inhabitants were put to the 
sword; many escaped to the Greek fleet, which conveyed them 
to Constantinople during the exile of Justinian II.; many were 
scattered over the coasts of vSicily, Italy, and Spain. Those in 
whom attachment to their country prevailed over their love of 
their religion, suffered themselves to be transplanted to Cairoan, 
the new capital founded by the conquerors; and the ancient 
queen of Africa has never arisen from her ruins. 

The Moors and the Berbers, as well as the Romans, opposed 
some resistance to the Musulmans. The historians of the latter, 
unchecked in their descriptions of battles with a people who had 
no traditions, lent them countless armies to enhance the glory of 
their own conquests, and have celebrated victories which were 
probably never obtained. But, whatever their resistance, the 
Moors were ultimately reduced to submission by Musa, Hassan's 
successor. Thirty thousand of their youth embraced Islamism 
in the same day, and were enrolled in the army: the whole na- 



298 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

tion, already resembling the Bedouins in their customs, and born 
under a similar climate, adopted the language and name, as well 
as the religion, of the Arabs, and, at the present day, the 
Moors can with difficulty be distinguished from the Saracens. 

Scarcely had the conquest of Africa been completed, in the 
year 709, when a Visigothic noble proffered his assistance to the 
lieutenant of the khaliphs, in introducing their troops into Spain. 
Rodrigo, who then ruled over Spain, was the twentieth of the 
Visigothic kings of Toledo, reckoning from Athanagild, who, in 
the year 554, had removed the seat of government to that city. 
We shall not trace the succession of these sovereigns, who are 
known to us only through the medium of short and imperfect chro- 
niclers, or through the acts of the councils of Toledo. A long de- 
tail of assassinations, of domestic plots, of sons put to death by 
the order of their fathers, would leave only a confused impression 
of crimes and violence, associated with barbarous names which 
the memory could not long retain. The Arian creed, which had 
maintained its ground longer in Spain than in any other part of the 
West, was abandoned in 586 by Recared, who at the commence- 
ment of his reign professed the orthodox faith. From this period 
the spirit of intolerance which prevailed among the clergy seemed 
to exercise a constant influence over the national councils. All who 
differed from the dominant opinions were subject to persecution, 
and the dissent of sectarians and Jews was frequently punished 
with death. It was to be expected that those who carried tyran- 
ty even into the sanctuary of thought, would hardly endure the pre- 
sence of a spirit of liberty in the civil government of the state: 
nevertheless, the Visigothic kings were not absolute ^ during the 
w^iole of their rule the throne was considered elective^ and al- 
though on several occasions the son succeeded to the father, it 
was only when, with the consent of the nation, he had been asso- 
ciated in the government during his father's life. 

This nation, however, consisted not of citizens, but of nobles, 
great landholders, and priests. From an early period the Visigoths 
had had nothing to fear from the opposition of enemies in the 
Peninsula; they retained their possessions on the other side of 
the Pyrennees, — Septimania, or Languedoc, — of which the Fran- 
kic kings had tried to deprive them. They subjugated the Suevi 
of Lusitania in 584, and in 623 drove the Greeks from the towns 
which they yet occupied on their coasts. From that time they 
neglected those military exercises which seemed objectless and 



CHAP. XV.] RODRIGO. 299 

needless. The victors, mixing with the far more numerous but 
vanquished Romans, adopted their language; or rather, from the 
mingling of Teutonic words and phrases with the provincial Latin 
first arose that Romanz language afterwards called Spanish. 
About the middle of the seventh century the Roman laws were 
abolished, and the whole of the kingdom governed according to 
the Visigothic code: this, it is true, was scarcely more than an 
abridgment of the code of Theodosius. The distinction between 
the two races was, therefore, more completely effaced in Spain 
than any other part of the West. The appellation Gothic was 
assigned to the whole nation, though Roman manners prevailed, 
and luxury, effeminacy, and the love of pleasure had obtained 
universal dominion. The landholders were numerous and armed, 
but they had lost their warlike habits and tastes; and in showing 
themselves disposed to have recourse to their national enemies to 
avenge their wrongs, rather than to their own swords, they proved 
that their barbarian opinions and sentiments were already ex- 
changed for those of the empire. 

Count Julian, a Gothic noble, governor of Ceuta in Africa, and 
of a portion of Spain on the other side the Straits, had received 
an inexpiable injury. It is related — ^but the statement rests for 
authority much more on a Spanish romance than upon any au- 
thentic chronicles — that Julian's daughter Cava was carried off 
by king Rodrigo, and that, to revenge this outrage, he hesitated 
not to sacrifice both his country and his religion. It is known, 
also (and with a higher degree of certainty,) that Witiza, the pre- 
decessor of Rodrigo, had left two sons. Now, although the nation 
had a right to remove them from the throne by a new election, 
yet, even in elective monarchies, the sons of kings consider them- 
selves endowed with inalienable rights; and it is a received doc- 
trine among the supporters of legitimacy, that a dethroned mo- 
narch is justified in appealing to the enemies of his country, if by 
this means he shall be enabled to recover any portion of the power 
of his ancestors. Count Julian, the sons of Witiza, and their 
uncle Oppas, archbishop of Toledo, secretly despatched a mes- 
senger to Musa, who then governed Africa for the khaliph, to 
request the assistance of a Musulman army to replace the legiti- 
mate princes on the throne. 

A daring Saracen commander, named Tarik, was the first to 
pass the Straits, in the month of July, 710, with five hundred 
soldiers. The place where he disembarked still bears the name 



300 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, [cHAP. XV. 

of Tarifa, and the castle of Julian, which was opened to receive 
him, he called Algesiras, (the Green Isle.) It was quickly filled 
with Christians, who flocked to his standard. In the following 
April, Tarik landed again in Spain, with five thousand soldiers, 
at Gibraltar, properly Gehel al Tarik, (the mountain of Tarik.) 
Rodrigo despatched troops with orders to drive the Musulmans 
into the sea; but their commander was, himself, put to the rout. 
The king of the Visigoths then assembled his whole army, which 
is said to have been from ninety to a hundred thousand strong; 
but Tarik, on his side, had been receiving daily re-enforcements. 
Twelve thousand Musulmans had already joined his standard; a 
multitude of African Moors, who had proved the valour of the 
Saracens, hastened hither to take part in their successes; even 
the number of Christians, who, dissatisfied with the government, 
or seduced by the nobles, had taken up arms against their reli- 
gion and their country, was very considerable. The armies met 
on the Guadalete, near Xeres. The Arab cavalry and light in- 
fantry, as usual, fatigued the more heavily armed troops of the 
Goths with long skirmishes. The engagement thus continued 
for seven days, from the 19th to the 26th of July. Rodrigo 
commanded his army in person; but the last successor of Alaric 
appeared at the head of his soldiers, bearing on his head a crown 
of pearls, clothed in a flowing robe of gold and silk, and re- 
clining in a car of ivory drawn by two white mules. The troops 
resembled their chief: it is, therefore, not very surprising, that 
their conduct corresponded to their dress. On the fourth day of 
the battle, the archbishop of Toledo and the two sons of Witiza, 
whose treachery had not been suspected, went over to the ene- 
my with their partisans: from that moment the battle was de- 
cided, and the remaining three days were little else than a disas- 
trous rout, fatal to the Gothic nation, as well as to nearly all the 
combatants. Almost all the towns subsequently attacked by 
detached parties opened their gates. Toledo, by capitulating, 
secured protection to its ancient religion; the lesser towns fol- 
lowed this example; and, in the first year of the invasion, Tarik 
had pushed his victorious course to the very shores of the Astu- 
rias. In the two following years, Musa, who had arrived with a 
fresh army from Africa, attacked successively Seville, Merida, 
and the other cities which had at first refused to surrender. Be- 
fore the end of the year 713, the whole of Spain was conquered; 
for the resistance of a few petty chiefs, who had retreated to in- 



CHAP. XV.] STATE OF FRANCE. 301 

accessible fastnesses in the mountains, was too indignant to at- 
tract the notice of the Musulmans. Bj these very chiefs, how- 
ever, and their descendants, in whom poverty and danger re- 
vived those virtues which luxury had destroyed, the country was 
reconquered^ but that which was wrested from them in three 
years, it required eight centuries to regain. Scarcely was Spain 
reduced, when, in 714, its conqueror Musa was made to expe- 
rience the ingratitude of despotic courts. He was arrested at 
the head of his army by a messenger from the caliph Valid, who 
commanded him to hasten to Damascus, there to render an ac- 
count for the abuse of power of which he was said to have been 
guilty. 

The geographical position of France now made it her special 
duty and interest to resist the fearful progress of the Musulman 
arms. We have seen, in another chapter, that, just at this pe- 
riod, Pepin of Heristal, duke of the Austrasian Franks, died, 
(December 16, 714,) after having, by the assistance of the great 
nobles, triumphed over the popular party of the Neustrians and 
their mayor of the palace, and had reduced the voluptuous and 
imbecile descendant of Clovis to a kind of captivity. The legi- 
timate sons of Pepin died before him^ and there is reason to be- 
lieve that one of them, Grimoald, was killed by his natural bro- 
ther Charles, afterwards surnamed le Martel, L e. the Hammer. 
This Charles, by whose valour France was hereafter to be saved, 
was then a prisoner of Plectrude, the widow of Pepin, one of 
whose sons, a child of about six years of age, had been designed 
to be mayor of the palace to the faineant king Dagobert HI., 
then about thirteen; so that, to the disgrace of the free men by 
whom they were to be obeyed, a boy king, in conjunction with 
an infant prime minister, was to govern the first monarchy of 
the West. The hatred of the Neustrians for the Austrasians 
had doubled during the oppressive administration of Pepin; the 
authority of the Franks was no longer recognised by the greater 
part of Germany. The Frieslanders made yearly attacks on the 
Austrasians. Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy, governed by 
dukes or counts, had separated themselves entirely from the mo- 
narchy. At length a civil war broke out in the very arrfry that 
Pepin had left at his death to his widow Plectrude: some re- 
mained faithful to her, others wished to release Charles from the 
prison in which he was confined at Cologne. No idea of the 
general interest, of honour, of the defence of Christendom^ 



302 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XV. 

seemed to form a bond of union among the people of the West; 
nor did Zama, the khaliph's new lieutenant, find any difficulty 
in crossing the Pyrennees, or in seizing upon Narbonne and all 
that part of Gaul that had remained attached to the Visigothic 
monarchy. 

The dukes of the southern provinces of Gaul soon began to 
negotiate and to submit. Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, after sus- 
taining a siege in Toulouse, his capital, resolved to seek the al- 
liance of Munuza, the Saracen commander of Septimania and 
Catalonia, and to give him his daughter in marriage. Ambiza, 
the new governor of Spain, making his way into Burgundy, ad- 
vanced, in 725, as far as Autun, with but little difficulty. Ab- 
derrahman, whom the khaliph Hashem afterwards sent to Cordu- 
ba, as governor of Spain, ciossed the Pyrennees in 732, entered 
Gaul by Gascony, carried Bordeaux by assault and delivered it 
up to pillage, crossed the Dordogne, defeated the duke of Aqui- 
taine in two battles, and ravaged Perigord, Saintonge, Angou- 
mois, and Poitou. Other bands of Musulmans had made their 
way into Provence; and duke Mauronte, as well as many other 
nobles between the Rhone and the Alps, had voluntarily submit- 
ted to the khaliphs. It appeared impossible for France to avoid 
subjugation: with her, all Europe would probably have fallen; 
for there was no people in the rear of the Franks in a condition 
for war, no other Christian people, none other that had made any 
progress toward civilization; none, in short, which, either by its 
valour, its policy, its means of defence, or the number of its 
troops, could indulge any hope of victory if the Franks were 
conquered. 

But Charles Martel, whom his partisans had liberated, in 715, 
from the hands of Plectrude and from his captivity at Cologne, 
had employed all the intervening time in remodelling the monar- 
chy, and in raising a new army; in attaching it to himself; in 
distributing amongst the soldiers the only riches he found still 
untouched, those of the clergy; in training them to war, by lead- 
ing them successively against the Frieslanders, the Saxons, the 
Aquitanians, and all the tribes which had severed themselves 
from the body of the state. He had reduced the Neustrians to 
subjection, and had gained the entire affection of the Austrasians. 
An absolute barbarian himself, and reigning in a country from 
which ancient civilization seemed completely rooted out, the 
whole of his life was passed in the camp. In the midst of these 



CHAP. XV.] BATTLE OF POIOTIERS. S03 

contests, his astonishment, but not fear, was excited by the arri- 
val of his old enemy Eudes, the duke of Aquitaine, accompanied 
by a small number of Aquitanian fugitives, declaring that he had 
nothing left of the territory or the army with which he had hi- 
therto resisted him; that an enemy more powerful than either of 
them had despoiled him of every thing. Charles Martel consult- 
ed his Franks, and they all declared themselves willing to un- 
dertake the defence of their former enemy, who now appealed 
to their generosity, against the Saracens. He passed the Loire 
in the month of October, 732, met Abderrahman on the plain of 
Poictiers, and, after seven days' skirmishing, engaged in that 
fearful battle which was to decide the fate of Europe. Isidore, 
bishop of Beja, in Portugal, an author nearly contemporary, is 
the only one who devotes more than two lines to this memorable 
event, which occurred at a time when no one wrote. " The 
Franks," says he, " were planted like an immoveable buttress, 
like a wall of ice, against which the light-armed Arabs dashed 
themselves to pieces without making any impression. The Mu- 
sulmans advanced and retired with great rapidity; but they were 
mowed down by the swords of the Germans. Abderrahman him- 
self fell under their blows. Mean while, night began to fall, and 
the Franks lifted up their arms, as if to petition their leaders for 
rest. They wished to reserve themselves for the next day's fight, 
for they saw the distant country covered with Saracen tents. 
But when, on the following morning, they formed for battle, they 
perceived that the tents were empty, and that the Saracens, ter- 
rified by the dreadful loss they had sustained, had retreated in 
the middle of the night, and were already far on their way." 
Although the Musulman army effected its retreat into Spain with- 
out farther check, this great battle was decisive; and Europe, at 
this day, owes its existence, its religion, and its liberty, to the 
victory gained over the Saracens before Poictiers, by Charles, the 
Hammer, which shattered the Saracen force. 



( 304 ) 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Absence of historical Documents. — ^Military Clergy. — Charles le Martel. — 
His numerous Wars and Victories. — Germanic Cliaracter of his Army 
and Government. — Thierry IV. — His Death. — Charles's Sovereignty. — 
His Death. — HostiUty of the Clergy to Charles. — Vision of St. Euche- 
rius, — Karloman. — His Abdication. — Pepin. — His Deference for the 
Church. — First Admission of Bishops to the National Assemblies.— Its 
Effect on the Character of those Meetings. — Childeric III. — His Deposi- 
tion. — Pepin proclaimed King. — End of the Merovingian Dynasty. — 
Reign of Pepin. — Annexation of Aquitaine, Burgundy, Provence, etc. 
to France. — State of Italy. — Astolfo, King of the Lombards. — Pope Ste- 
phen II. — His Suit to Pepin for Assistance.'^ — Enthusiasm of the Franks. — 
Invasion of Italy. — Defeat of Astolfo. — Grant made to the See of Rome by 
Pepin. — Power of the Clergy. — Death of Pepin. — Extraordinary Charac- 
ter of his Son and Nephew, Charles the Great. — Joint Succession of Cliarles 
and Karloman. — Death of Karloman. — Vices of Charles. — Eginhard. — His 
Account of Charlemagne's Learning and Accomphshments. — Alcuin. — 
Extent of the Frankic Empire. — State of the Gaulish and of the Frankic 
Population. — Superiority of the Germanic Portion. — Border Nations. — 
Lombards. — Didier. — Marriage and Repudiation of his Daughter Deside- 
ria by Charles. — War with Lombardy. — Invasion of Italy. — Siege and 
Surrender of Pavia. — Imprisonment of Didier. — Flight of his Son Adel- 
ghis. — Union of the Crown of Lombardy with that of France. — War 
with the Saxons. — Their Numbers and Character. — Wedekind. — His ob- 
stinate Resistance. — Victory of Buchholz. — Massacre of the Saxon Pri- 
soners. — Submission of Wedekind. — Final Subjugation of the Saxons.- — 
A. D. ri4— 800. 

After having laid before our readers the origin, the early pro- 
gress, and the rapid conquests, of a new empire and a new re- 
ligion, which, arising in the burning regions of the south, threat- 
ened to overflow the world, we are led by these very victories 
to turn our attention to that people and that empire of Europe 
which arrested the progress of the invading torrent; which pre- 
served and bequeathed to us the laws, the independence, the re- 
ligion, and the language of the Latin and the German world. 

Charles Martel, the natural son and successor of Pepin of He- 
ristal, during a reign of twenty-seven years, (a. d. 714 — 741,) 
appears to our eyes shrouded by a dense cloud; yet from this 
cloud we occasionally see the flash of the lighting and hear the 
roar of the thunder. The West had never been so absolutely with- 
out an historian, as during the first half of the eighth century; 
never had barbarism been so complete, or monarch, nobles, and 



CHAP. XVI.] CHARLES MARTEL. 305 

people so utterly indifferent to fame, so careless of transmitting 
any recollections of their deeds to posterity. 

The sole record we possess of this long period is found in chro- 
nicles, the author of which has rigidly abstained from devoting 
more than three lines to each year. Even the clergy at this time 
were purely military. The new bishops, upon whom Charles 
Martel bestowed the richest benefices of Gaul, did not lay down 
the sword when they assumed the crosier; the greater number ot 
them knew not how to read, and had not in their whole chapter a 
single person who could write. Hence the catalogues of the bi- 
shops of France, during the seventh and eighth centuries, exhibit 
only a long blank. If Charles murdered his brother Grimoald, 
the motive was not ambition, but a desire of avenging the insult 
offered to his mother Alpaide: the tie between two brothers, sons 
of two rival mothers, could not be very strong; and the guilty 
violence of Charles would do him no dishonour, at least in the eyes 
of his countrymen. The bravery, the promptitude, and the talents 
of Charles, the " Martel " (hammer) that crushed the enemies of 
France, inspired his companions in arms with equal gratitude and 
admiration. In him they saw the hero who had repulsed the 
Frieslanders; who in the great battle of Vincy, on the 21st of 
March, 717, had compelled the Neustrians once more to acknow- 
ledge the supremacy of the Austrasians; who conquered in suc- 
cession the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Allemans, the Aquitani- 
ans, the Burgundians, and the Provencals, before he achieved 
that grand victory over the Saracens which saved Europe from 
their yoke. We have no details of these campaigns, in which 
Charles's success was uninterrupted^ we only see that his ene- 
mies, or rather that the dukes, formerly subject to France and now- 
struggling to throw off their allegiance, gave him not a moment's 
repose. The year 740 is the only one not marked by a battle; 
and the annalists record this fact with as much astonishment as 
the Romans were wont to mention those in which they closed the 
temple of Janus. Before Charles's time Gaul had begun to re- 
gain somewhat of the character impressed on her by Roman 
power and Roman civilization. The Franks, the Visigoths, the 
Burgundians, established in Aquitaine, in Septimania, in Burgun- 
dy, and Provence, suffered the language and the customs of their 
forefathers to fall into disuse and oblivion, and adopted those of 
the Latins. Even the Franks of Neustria had yielded to the in- 
fluence of time, of indolence, and of the examples universally pre- 



306 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XVI. 

valent around them. The victories of Charles Martel restored to 
France a purely Germanic government. The army was once 
more in possession of undisputed sovereignty, and this army was 
levied exclusively in countries speaking the Teutonic languages. 
Its assembles, in the months of March and October, for the pur- 
pose of deliberatmg and deciding on national business, were 
more frequent and regular. Its spirit of hostility to all who used 
the Latin tongue was more marked. Once more, it was distinct 
from the mass of the people^ once more, as in the early times of 
the first dynasty, it remained imbodied in cantonments, instead 
of dispersing itself through the provinces, where the soldier might 
resume domestic habits, and unite the cultivation of the soil to 
the practice of arms. 

Charles had permitted Chilperic II., nominal sovereign of the 
Neustrians from the year 715 to 720, to retain the title of king. 
He had appointed Thierry lY. to succeed him, (a. d. 720 — 737?) 
and he left him, without distrust or dread, to the full enjoyment 
of the pomps and pleasures of royalty; to feasts and mistresses, 
the theatre and the chase: in a word, to all that these princes 
required to convince them that they were of a race distinct from 
common men, and that those who incurred the toils and the pe- 
rils of war, who took upon themselves the irksome business of 
thought and of action, were but the obsequious menials who 
eased them of fatigue. It has sometimes been affirmed, and on 
the authority of a chronicle otherwise exact and veracious, that 
the faineant kings were prisoners in the palace of Maumaques, 
on the Oise. We are, however, in possession of charters of 
Thierry IV. dated from Soissons, Coblentz, Metz, Heristal, 
Gondreville, and a great many other palaces. He inhabited 
them all in turn, in perfect liberty, nor did it ever occur to him 
to suspect that he did not govern. At his death, however, 
Charles thought he might safely dispense with a useless pageant: 
he appointed no successor. 

We know the names neither of the ministers, the generals, nor 
the companions in arms of Charles; unless, indeed, we choose to 
adopt as authority the tales and songs of chivalry, and to recog- 
nise the existence of those Preux, the paladins of Charlemagne; 
Roland and Reinhold, (Rinaldo,) Brandimart, Ogier the Dane, 
and all the illustrious heroes of romance. The wars of the Sa- 
racens, in which they figure, did, in fact, extend through the 
whole reign of Charles Martel; they were not terminated by the 



CHAP. XVI. 3 CHARLES M ARTEL. 307 

battle of Poictiers. Between the years 733 and 737, the Mu- 
sulmans got possession of Avignon 5 they repelled the attacks of 
Charles Martel in Septimaniaj and subjugated nearly the whole 
of Provence. In 739 they were driven out, but only to recon- 
quer itj and their civil wars in Spain afforded the sole check to 
their progress in Gaul. These successive invasions give some 
colour of reality to the long struggles celebrated by Ariosto and 
his precursors, in which the more illustrious name of Charles the 
Great has been substituted for that of his grandfather. The 
time of the disastrous battle of Roncesvalles, in which Roland 
perished after a long career of military glory, (a. d. 778, the 
tenth year of Charlemagne's reign,) favours this supposition. 

Charles died on the 21st of October, 741, leaving three sons 
by three different mothers: Pepin and Karloman, between whom 
he divided the vast dominions he had conquered in Gaul and 
Germany^ and Grifon, much younger than his brothers, to whom 
he bequeathed only an estate sufficient for the maintenance of 
his rank. The portion of the latter, small as it was, was not 
respected: the two princes stripped Grifonj who, sometimes re- 
ceived into favour, and sometimes goaded to fresh rebellion, af- 
ter having sought refuge with all the enemies of his family in 
turn, was at length assassinated on the banks of the Arche in 
Savoy. It might be presumed, that, the hero who had saved the 
church af Gaul from the Musulman yoke must be dear to the 
clergy: but he had imagined that for a cause so eminently reli- 
gious he might demand the aid of the professors of religion. 
Pressed at the same time by the pagans of Germany and the 
Musulmans of Spain, he had subjected the revenues of convents 
and churches to the payment of a ninth or tenth, with the aid of 
which he had been enabled to support his army. Never did the 
clergy forgive him this application of a portion of church pro- 
perty. ''It is because prince Charles," says the council of 
Kiersi to one of his descendants, " was the first of all the kings 
and princes of the Franks who separated and dismembered the 
goods of the church, it is for that sole cause that he is eternally 
damned. We know, indeed, that St. Eucherius, bishop of Or- 
leans, being in prayer, was carried up to the world of spirits, 
and that, among the things which the Lord showed unto him, he 
beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of hell. The 
angel who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, an- 
swered him, that, in the judgment to come, the soul and the body 



308 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

of him who has taken or has divided the goods of the church, 
shall be delivered over, even before the end of the world, to 
eternal torments, bj the sentence of the saints who shall sit, to- 
gether with the Lord, to judge him. This act of sacrilege shall 
add to his own sins the accumulated sins of all those who thought 
that thej had purchased their redemption by giving, for the love 
of God, their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine v/or- 
ship, and to the alms of the servants of Christ. 

What an infallible council then wrote to Louis, the Germanic 
priests and monks had never ceased proclaiming from the pulpit 
during the whole preceding century. They had struck terror 
into the imagination of every Carlovingian by their declarations 
of the certain damnation of the founder of their line. Far from 
exciting the disgust and indignation of his descendants by this 
language, they had heightened their superstitious terrors: and we 
may date from this period a revolution in the government of 
France, the subjection of the sword to the crosier, and the estab- 
lishment of the supremacy of the clergy. 

Of the two sons of Charles, Karloman, who had received Aus- 
trasia and Germany as his portion, seemed to have his mind most 
troubled by these superstitious fears. After a reign of six years, 
(a. d. 741 — 747,) during which his victories over the Bavarians 
and the AUemans gained him some renown, though sullied by 
the cruelty of the punishments he inflicted, and by some suspi- 
cion of treachery, Karloman suddenly took the resolution of re- 
nouncing the world, and of retiring to a convent which he had 
founded on Mount Soracte, near Romej and as, even there, he 
found himself surrounded by too much pomp, and waited upon 
with too much respect, he escaped, and took refuge in the Bene- 
dictine convent on Monte Cassino. If we may give credence to 
the legend, he there submitted to the most abject humiliations, 
and so perfectly succeeded in concealing his rank, that he was 
employed to keep the sheep belonging to the convent, or to assist 
in the lowest drudgery of the kitchen. 

Pepin, surnamed the Short, the younger of the two brothers, 
was not inspired by a religious zeal so entirely detached from the 
things of this world. When Karloman abdicated the sovereign- 
ty, he recommended his children to his brother's care and pro- 
tection. Pepin hastened to have them ordained, in order, as he 
said, to secure to them celestial crowns, more lasting than those 
perishable glories which their father had bequeathed them, and 



CHAP. XVI.] PEPIN. CHILDERIO III. 309 

which he took to himself. At the same time, he showed a de- 
gree of deference for the clergy, till then without example. He 
not only enriched them with immense donations^ he submitted 
the whole of his political affairs and conduct to their judgment, 
and seemed to act only under their direction. He was the first 
who allotted to the bishops a seat in the assemblies of the nation 5 
and, by that single act, he occasioned the disuse of the German 
or Frankic tongue, in which the deliberations had hitherto been 
carried on, in favour of the Latin: a language which the majority 
of the Franks did not understand, was henceforth the language 
of these meetings. Nor was this all. The bishops soon brought 
before the assemblies of the Champs de Mars theological ques- 
tions still more unintelligible than the tongue in which they were 
discussed. The brave but ignorant warriors, full of reverence 
for the prelates, and of zeal for religion, listened, uncomplaining- 
ly, to the long harangues which now formed the exclusive busi- 
ness of the sittings, and of which they understood not a single 
word. The tediousness and the insignificance of the part they 
played, at length drove them from these assemblies^ and hence 
arose that important revolution which, under the Carlovingian 
dynasty, transformed military reviews into episcopal synods. 
Pepin and his son Charlemagne, however, knew perfectly well 
how to find their soldiers when they wanted them, by convoking 
the fields of March or of May in the enemy's country. At a 
subsequent period the bishops succeeded in obtaining the sole 
voice in these meetings. 

One of the first acts of the clergy, now become omnipotent, 
was to introduce into the Frankic legislation such of the Mosaic 
laws, found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, as ap- 
peared to them to afford materials for the confirmation of their 
power. This is the main drift of the Capitularies of Pepin, in 
which it is easy to trace the exclusive work of priests. They 
afterwards showed their gratitude to their patron by ridding him 
of a rival who might have become dangerous. In 742, Pepin 
thought himself obliged to give to Neustria a new Merovingian 
king, whom he called Childeric III. He had taken him out of 
some convent; and his choice had probably been determined by 
his extreme youth. By this mark of respect for the ancient race, 
he had endeavoured to allay the discontents and the resentments 
of the Franks of the south, who reluctantly submitted to the 
domination of the Austrasians and of a new army of Germanic 

40 



310 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

soldiers. When, however, Childeric had attained the age of 
reason, and might possibly have asserted his claim to some por- 
tion of that royal authority of which he had hitherto enjoyed 
only the trappings, Pepin began to be still more disquieted by 
fears of those popular passions which he had sought to propitiate, 
but to which, as it now appeared to him, he had but given a lead- 
er. Opposing one hereditary right only by another, he felt that 
he was not the choice of the nation. He determined to be 
at least the choice of the priests. 

He intrusted his chaplain and the bishop of Wurzburg with 
a secret negotiation with Rome, and he obtained from pope Za- 
charias the answer which he had himself suggested. It was pro- 
claimed in these terms: — "That it was more expedient that he 
should be king who really exercised the royal power." And, in 
fact, on the first Sunday of March, a. d. 759>, Pepin caused him- 
self to be raised on a shield at Soissons, and proclaimed king of 
the Franks^ after which he was anointed by the bishops with a 
mysterious oil which placed him under the immediate protection 
of the Deity. Childeric III. submitted without resistance, and 
was shut up in a convent at St. Omer. His son, whose birth had 
probably given some alarm to Pepin, was also put out of the way. 

The profound obscurity which hangs over the history of the 
latter reigns of the Merovingian line is not dissipated immediate- 
ly after the accession of the new dynasty. The character of 
king Pepin is completely unknown to us. We have no means 
of judging whether his profound deference for the priesthood was 
the effect of policy or of superstition; yet this is the only re- 
markable feature of his character of which we have any record. 
We have not the slightest idea either of his habits, his talents, or 
of the degree of instruction which he could have acquired; and, 
during a reign of sixteen years from the time of his coronation, 
(a. d. 752 — 768,) we gain no farther information concerning 
him. 

Yet the coronation of Pepin must be regarded as the final and 
completing act of the revolution which placed the south of Eu- 
rope under Germanic ascendency, and renewed the rigorous or- 
ganization which the conquerors of France had brought from the 
North. The other Pepin, his grandfather, who conquered the 
Neustrians and the freemen with the aid of a portion of the 
great nobles, while he augmented his own power, had disorga- 
nized the empire. All the dukes, his allies, had looked to the 



CHAP. XVI.] PEPIN THE SHORT. Sll 

power of shaking off their yoke as the first fruit of victory. The 
domination of the Franks had ceased to be recognised by Ger- 
many and by southern Gaul 5 and, during seventy years, the 
Carlovingians were involved in a struggle with their former al- 
lies, the object of which was to strip them of the prerogatives for 
which they had fought side by side. Pepin the Short, in as- 
suming the title of king, instantly asserted his claim to the same 
supremacy which had been enjoyed by the descendants of Clo- 
vis^ and, so great is the power of names over men, that the pre- 
tensions he put forth to a predominance over the independent 
princes began to be recognised as just. A part of the dukes of 
Germany acknowledged his supremacy. Odilo, duke of Bava- 
ria, demanded his sister in marriage, and promised to march 
again under the Frankic banner. The whole north of Gaul 
obeyed. The submission of the south was the fruit of a con- 
quest which occupied nearly the entire reign of Pepin. 

One of the independent dukes, Guaifer, ruled over the whole 
country lying between the Loire and the Pyrennees. This was the 
ancient kingdom of Aquitaine, which now bore no higher title than 
that of dukedom. It was the same country v/hich Clovis had endea- 
voured to wrest from the Visigoths^ and Pepin, like Clovis, sought 
in religion a pretext for wresting it from his sovereign, and for 
inducing the Franks to second his projects. He accused Guaifer 
of having robbed the churches of a part of their wealth; cited him 
to make instant restitution of them; and, on his refusing, entered 
Aquitaine. The war lasted eight years, (a. d. T60 — 768:) it was 
followed up with intense exasperation, but was at length termi- 
nated by the death of Guaifer, the entire ruin of his family, and 
the union of Aquitaine with the crown of France. 

Pepin had profited by the dissensions of the vSaracens in Spain, 
to recover Septimania from them. He had taken Narbonne in 
759, and had for the first time united Languedoc, as far as the 
eastern Pyrennees, to the Frankic monarchy. Burgundy and Pro- 
vence, overrun by his armies, no longer opposed any resistance. 
The dukes of those provinces had submitted to the royal authori- 
ty, without offering battlej and, at the conclusion of his reign, 
there remained no portion of Gaul which was not subject to the 
monarchy. 

Even Italy had once more experienced the bravery of the 
Franks and the power of their kings. That country, divided for 
two centuries between the exarchs of Ravenna and the Lombard 



312 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

kings, had just undergone a revolution. Astolfo, king of the 
Lombards, had conquered Ravenna and the towns subject to the 
Greek emperors along the Adriatic, in the year 752: from that 
time this province was called Romagna, as being the only one 
which had remained subject to the Roman empire. The exarchate 
was abolished, and king Astolfo began to turn his arms against 
the other small provinces which the Greeks still possessed in Ita- 
ly, and, especially the dukedom of Rome. The pope was the first 
citizen of this duchy; and, though he always acknowledged the 
sovereignty of the Greek empire, he exercised throughout the 
province a power rendered the more extensive by the attachment 
of the Italians to the worship of images, and their consequent ha- 
tred of the domination of the iconoclast emperors. Stephen II., 
who then occupied the pontifical chair, instead of imploring the 
aid of Constantine Copronymus, applied to the king of the Franks, 
and conjured him to protect the apostle St. Peter, and the flock 
more immediately committed to his care. He even repaired to 
France in person, in 753, to solicit assistance. He excited a de- 
gree of enthusiasm which he had not expected; for, while he pre- 
sented himself as a suppliant, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, he 
found himself considered as a messenger of the divinity, or rather 
as a divinity himself, whose orders were to be implicitly obeyed. 
The Franks, with one accord, declared themselves ready to sacri- 
fice their property and their lives for his advantage. Pepin asked 
fresh consecration at his hands, and implored him to anoint his wife 
and children with the same mysterious oil. In return, he offered 
to abandon for ever the care of his kingdom, and to devote the 
whole remainder of his life to warring for the glory of God and of 
his vicar upon earth. 

The pope dexterously took advantage of a state of popular ex- 
citement which he had not anticipated. He immediately shifted 
his ground, and required for himself, or rather for the apostle Pe- 
ter from whom he produced a letter addressed to the king of the 
Franks, the succour which he had at first asked for the Roman 
republic or the Greek empire. Of his own authority he granted 
to Pepin and his two sons the title of Patrician; a title which was 
then appropriated to the lieutenant of that very Greek empire to 
which the pontiff himself had hitherto been subject. 

He led Pepin and the army of the Franks into Italy; and after 
Astolfo had been conquered, he obtained from the generosity of 
the Frankic king the donation, made in favour of St. Peter, 



CHAP. XVI.] PEPIN THE SHORT. 313 

either of the provinces themselves which had hitherto belonged 
to the Greeks, or of certain rights over those provinces, which 
were never very accurately defined, or very clearly understood, 
either by the donor or the receiver; but which, from their very 
vagueness and confusion, gave rise to the pretensions of the court 
of Rome over the sovereignty of a part of Italy. 

Pepin reigned eleven years as mayor of the palace, and sixteen 
as king. His father had been the representative of a sovereign 
army; Pepin constituted himself the representative of a sovereign 
clergy; but both, by their rare talents, by their energy of will, 
by their great personal glory, had succeeded in completely pre- 
dominating over the puissant body in whose name they acted. 
All that we know of the laws, of the civil acts, of the military 
achievements, of Pepin, seem to have been calculated to found 
and to consolidate this sovereignty of the clergy. Nevertheless, 
so long as he lived, he alone profited by a power which he had 
laboured to transmit; and when, on the 24th of September, 768, 
he died, he left behind him a son greater than himself, who, 
during nearly half a century, continued to rule and to protect 
that clergy whose authority and influence Pepin had substituted 
for that of the army. It was not till the reign of his grandson 
that all the consequences of the revolution he had effected in the 
monarchy could be estimated. 

After having so long directed our attention alternately to so- 
vereigns enervated by luxury and sloth, and by all the vices of 
courts; or to captains of barbarians, whose energy was chiefly 
manifested in acts of ferocity; after having turned with equal 
repugnance from the crimes of the Roman emperors and the crimes 
of the Frankic kings, we come at length to a great and noble 
character, — a man who unites the talents of the warrior, the geni- 
us of the legislator, and the virtues of the private citizen; a man 
who, born in the midst of barbarism, encompassed with the thick- 
est darkness by the prevailing ignorance of his age, pours around 
him a stream of light and of glory; a man who gave a new im- 
pulse to civilization, and sensibly advanced the condition of 
the human race, which had so long been retrograding; who 
created, after ages had been passed in destroying; and who, 
though much better known than those who came two centuries 
before or two centuries after him, still inspires us with regret 
that we know not more of him. The entire reign of Charle- 
magne, from the year 768 to the year 814, is one of the most 



314 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

important periods of modern history. Charlemagne, claimed by 
the church as a saint^ by the French as the greatest of their kings 5 
by the Germans as their countryman^ by the Italians as their 
emperor^ may be regarded as in some sort the fountain of all 
modern history. It is to him that we must always refer, in order 
to understand thoroughly our present condition and institutions. 

It was not immediately that Charlemagne manifested all the 
greatness of his genius and of his character. Compelled to edu- 
cate himself, to re-create for his own use the whole world of 
morals and of politics, some time was necessary for him to find 
his way out of the beaten track; to conceive what he owed to 
himself and to his subjects; to appeal to any other rule or stan- 
dard of action than those low personal interests which had been 
the sole guides of his predecessors. He did not succeed alone 
to his father; at the moment of his death Pepin had divided the 
monarchy between his two sons. To Charles, who was the elder, 
and who had then attained the age of twenty-six, he bequeathed 
the western part of his dominions, from Friesland to the Bay of 
Biscay; to Karloman, the younger, he gave the east, from Swabia 
to the sea of Marseilles. The two brothers did not long remain 
on terms of amity. If Karloman had lived, war would, in all 
probability, have broken out between them at no distant period: 
he died in the third year of his reign, a. d. 771. Charles, with 
a rapacity and injustice which could not have been surpassed by 
any of his predecessors, stripped the widow and children of his 
brother of their inheritance, forced them to flee into Italy, nor 
is his name free from the stain of even darker suspicions as to 
their fate. 

In his domestic manners, Charles, too, began by incurring re- 
;proach, from which, indeed, he was not wholly free to the end 
;of his life. It was not only on account of his numerous mis- 
tresses, and the scandal which he thus caused, both to his people 
-and to his daughters, who were brought up in the palace inhabit- 
ed by his concubines, that he deserved censure. In his mar- 
riages and divorces he obeyed no other law than his own caprice; 
he seemed insensible to the suffering of the unfortunate women 
whom, he repudiated under the slightest pretext, and left a prey 
to regret and humiliation. 

But singular strength, both of soul and of intellect, are required 
to enable a man to raise himself to the comprehension and practice 
of true and severe morality, when every seductive influence sur- 



CHAP. XVI.] CHARLEMAGNE. 315 

rounds him, every example tends to corrupt him; when even the 
guides and guardians of his conscience offer him the treacherous 
resource of compensations, and assure him that all his sins may- 
be absolved by alms and donations bestowed on monks and on 
churches. We owe it to Charles to reckon every step he set 
against the torrent, and to repress all surprise if its impetuosity 
occasionally hurried him along with it. 

It is not known whether Pepin, who was entirely illiterate 
himself, had endeavoured to procure for his son the advantages 
of a liberal education; or whether Charlemagne began, as well 
as completed, by his own unaided will and energy, those studies 
which enlightened his mind and contributed largely to his moral 
greatness. Eginhard, his friend and secretary, has left us some 
most curious and valuable details respecting the instruction he 
acquired. 

" Charles's eloquence," says he, " was abundant: he expressed 
with great facility whatever he desired; and, not contenting him- 
self with his mother tongue, he had taken the trouble to learn 
those of foreign lands. He had so well learned Latin, that he 
could discourse in publick in that language almost as easily as in 
his own. He understood Greek better than he was able to em- 
ploy it." It is worthy of remark, that Eginhard does not tell us 
whether Charlemagne understood or could speak that vatois of 
the lower classes, called Roman, which then began to be formed 
in Gaul, and which gave birth to the French language; his native 
tongue was, of course, German. *' Charles," continues Eginhard, 
" had so much eloquence and fluency of speech, that he might 
almost be charged with abusing this gift. He had carefully 
studied the liberal arts; he had a great respect for the teachers 
of them, and heaped honours upon them. He had learned gram- 
mar of deacon Peter of Pisa, who gave him lessons in his old age. 
In his other studies he had, as preceptor, Albinus, surnamed 
Alcuin, a deacon from Britain, but of Saxon race; a man learned 
in every sort of knowledge. With him he devoted a great deal 
of time and labour to the learning of rhetoric, dialectics, and, more 
especially, astronomy. He also learned the art of calculating, or 
arithmetic; and applied himself with great assiduity to ascertain the 
courses of the stars. He likewise exercised himself in writing; 
and commonly kept under his pillow, tablets and small books, 
so that when he had any moments to spare, he might accustom 
his hand to form letters: but he succeeded ill in this work, which 
was taken up too late and unseasonably." 



316 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

It is SO contrary to all our usages to attain to so great a pro- 
ficiency in language and in science without the power of writing, 
that people have tried to invent some other explanation for the 
words of this text, clear as it is; and have conjectured that cal- 
ligraphy, and not mere writing, is meant. This arises from their 
having lost sight of the direction which instruction took in bar- 
barous ages. With few books, and a still greater scarcity of pa- 
per, writing was a great and costly luxury; lessons were almost 
all orally given, nor was writing ever used as a mere instrument 
of study. Charles, it is true, was not constrained to economize 
parchment; but his masters could never have required the habit, 
with their other pupils, of making writing the basis of instruc- 
tion; so that they would not have known how to combine their 
lessons with the extracts, dictations, and other written exercises 
now in use: they required of their scholars no notes nor compo- 
sitions, and they inscribed their precepts not on tablets, but on 
the memory. Writing was a useful art, and not a branch of 
science; and a man of active mind found it much more advan- 
tageous to employ secretaries. Although, therefore, Charles 
could not write, we may place him, without hesitation, among 
the most learned sovereigns that ever sat upon a throne. 

The great man that, at the period we are now contemplating, 
wielded the sceptre of France with undivided sway, had at his 
disposal the whole force of one of the most powerful monarchies 
the w^orld ever beheld. The whole of Gaul was now subject to 
the Franks, as far as the Pyrennees, the Mediterranean, and the 
Italian Alps. Helvetia, Rhaetia, and Swabia, were annexed to 
it; and its northern frontier extended far beyond the Rhine, to 
the plains of Lower Germany, where the Franks bordered on 
the Saxons. The population of this vast empire was very une- 
qually distributed. Throughout the south of Gaul it was still 
numerous, but disarmed: the inhabitants of Aquitaine, Provence, 
and Burgundy were also often designated by the name of Ro- 
mans; their language, out of which arose the modern French, 
was not understood by their conquerors; they were always re- 
garded with distrust, were not incorporated in the armies, nor 
appointed to any places of trust or influence. In the centre of 
Gaul, though occupied by two nations instead of one — the Franks 
and the Romans, the former of whom had not learned the lan- 
guage of the latter, — the population was more thinly scattered; 
the greater number of husbandmen were reduced to a state of 



OHAP. XVI.] LOMBARD WAR. 317 

slavery; the nobles occupied whole provinces, which they admi- 
nistered like vast farms; and freemen, dispersed with their small 
hereditary properties around the borders of a great estate, felt 
themselves in a state of oppression which often drove them to 
renounce their allodia, to abandon their freehold property, and 
submit themselves in voluntary allegiance to some one of their 
powerful neighbours, who, in return, engaged to afford them pro 
tection. But, in the provinces situated on the banks of tlie 
Rhine, which have preserved to this day the use of the German 
language, the Teutonic race were sole masters. There were 
few slaves, and, consequently, few great lords; the population 
mainly consisted of freemen, who cultivated their own allodia; 
and leudes, or feudatory vassals, who had bound themselves in 
military service to their lords, and held themselves constantly 
armed and prepared to perform it. 

It was in these provinces, of which Aix-la-Chapelle, or, in 
their own language, Aachem, was, in some sort, the metropolis, 
that the whole nerve and vigour of the Frankic nation resided. 
There it was that Charlemagne assembled his armies; there he 
convoked his states-general. It was with the aid of this Ger- 
manic portion of his subjects alone that he ruled the rest of his 
monarchy, and that he attempted conquests beyond its limits. 

Charles's neighbours were not powerful enough to inspire him 
with much anxiety. To the v/est, the sea bounded his territory^ 
and, beyond it, the island of Britain, divided among the petty 
kings of the Saxon heptarchy, and in a state of absolute barba- 
rism, exercised no influence, and could awaken no fears. To 
the south, Spain had detached itself, in the year 755, from the 
great empire of the khaliphs. A descendant of the OmmiadeSj, 
Abderrahman, had founded the kingdom of Corduba, which the 
sovereign of Damascus regarded as a revolted province. The 
Saracens had ceased to be formidable; and, in the Asturias, Na- 
varre, and Arragon, obscure Gothic princes began, under the pro- 
tection of Charlemagne, to emerge from their mountain holds> 
and to drive back the Musulman&. 

To the West, the Lombards in Italy, the Bavarians in Ger- 
many, had already felt the power of the Franks, and dissembled 
their hatred and their distrust, from the fear of provoking a too 
potent enemy. On the north alone, the vast regions of Lower 
Germany were covered with confederations of the Saxons, whose 
government was very nearly the same as that of the Franks had 

41 



318 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. []CHAP. XVI. 

been three centuries before; whose bravery v^as equally formida- 
ble; but the social bonds between whom were too lax to render 
them a compact body, fitted to attempt a distant conquest. 
Each of these neighbouring states felt, in turn, the weight of the 
arms of Charlemagne. 

Desiderio, or Didier, had succeeded to Astolfo in 756, on the 
throne of the Lombards. An attempt of Bertha, mother of 
Charlemagne, to unite the two royal houses by marriage, had 
produced the very contrary effect; — the effect, indeed, generally 
produced by that false policy which founds national alliances on 
the private affections of sovereigns. In repudiating Desideria, 
daughter of Didier, Charles had deeply offended his father-in- 
law, and liad imbittered national rivalries by a domestic injury. 
The donation which Pepin had made to the Holy see, of the pro- 
vinces conquered from the Greek empire, had proved, from its 
vagueness and its non-execution, a source of continual animosi- 
ties between the Lombards and the popes; and Stephen III., who 
then occupied the papal throne, incessantly solicited Charles to 
tread in his father's footsteps, to undertake anew the defence of 
the apostle St. Peter, whom Stephen always assumed to be di- 
rectly interested in the temporal prosperity of the church of 
Rome, and to crush the Lombard nations for ever. The young 
monarch, who found himself at the head of a warlike people, and 
to whom the chief of his religion offered eternal salvation as an 
encouragement to him to follow the dictates of his own ambition, 
his personal resentments, and his most ignoble passions, readily 
yielded to these solicitations. He convoked an assembly of the 
Franks at Geneva. On the 1st of May, 773, his warriors were 
to repair in arms to this place, so foreign to their language and 
so remote from their homes. 

This war, which was destined to secure to Charles one of his 
first and most brilliant conquests, was not of long duration. 
His army entered Italy by Mont St. Bernard and Mont Cenis. 
The Lombards, not daring to meet their enemy in the open field, 
collected all their forces in Pavia, in the hope that the barbarians, 
far less skilled than themselves in the art of sieges, would waste 
their strength before the walls of that strongly fortified place, 
or would fall victims to the diseases which a foreign climate and 
their own intemperance would not fail to produce in their lines. 
But it appears that already Charles had found means to intro- 
duce into his camp a better discipline than had hitherto prevailed 



CHAP. XVI.] SAXONS. 319 

in the Frankic armies. He was not discouraged during a siege, 
or rather a blockade, which lasted nearly a year. He had even 
sufficient confidence in his lieutenants, to quit his army, while he 
went to celebrate the festival of Easter at Rome, where he was 
received by the pope with all the honours which the church ever 
delights to render to a powerful sovereign. Pavia was at length 
obliged to open her gates, in the beginning of June, 774. Desi- 
derio was given up to Charles, with his wife and daughter, and 
sent prisoner to Liege 5 whence, it appears, he was afterwards 
transferred to Corbie. The remainder of his life was conse- 
crated to fasting and prayer — the sole consolations of his capti- 
vity. His son, Adalgis, who had been at the same time be- 
sieged in Verona, had escaped a similar fate by flight. He sought 
a refuge at the court of Constantinople. The rest of the nation 
had submitted to the victory and Charles united the crown of 
Lombardy to that of the Franks. 

The war with the Saxons had not for its object, like that of 
Italy, the conquest of a country enriched with all the gifts of 
nature, and the labours of man; it seemed to promise much less 
glorious results. It was longer, far more inveterate and fero- 
cious, and demanded far greater sacrifices of men and money. 
The end, however, which Charles proposed to himself, was not 
less important, nor were the consequences of his successes less 
durable. 

The free and warlike Saxons already possessed those advan- 
tages over the Franks, which nations entirely barbarous have 
over those which begin to be civilized and have acquired more 
of the vices than the virtues of refinement and prosperity. The 
confederation of the Saxons was as yet little formidable; but 
nothing was wanting, save the fortunate accident which might 
raise up an able chief among them, to unite all the forces of 
their various leagues, lead them into the South, and once more 
overrun and conquer Gaul and Italy, as the Visigoths, the Bur- 
gundians, the Franks, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards had 
successively done. The experience of several centuries had 
proved, that barbarous nations followed in each other's track; 
that one which had achieved its conquests, never continued in a 
condition to I'esist a new invader; that, in this constant and ine- 
vitable disproportion of strength, not only Europe was exposed 
to a renewal of the same calamities, but that all progress became 
impossible: the darkness of barbarism grew thicker every day; 



320 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

and the moment in which any degree of order or tranquillity 
seemed about to be established in a newly conquered country, 
might be almost infallibly regarded as the forerunner of a still 
more terrible convulsion. 

We are in a position to judge of a futurity which Charlemagne 
could not foresee^ since we know the character of his successors, 
and the state of the empire during their reign. This knowledge 
leaves no doubt as to what would have been the final result of 
the war between the Franks and the Saxons, if, instead of break- 
ing out in the time of Charlemagne, it had been deferred till the 
time of Louis the Debonnaire, or Charles the Bald. Charles ci- 
vilized Northern Saxony: a century later, the Saxons would 
have replunged Gaul into complete barbarism^ they would have 
repeated the times of Clovis and of his successors, till, enfeebled 
in their turn by the delights of the South and the vices of their 
slaves, they would have given place to new conquerors. Charles 
may be reproached with having suffered himself to be carried 
away, during this war, by vengeance and intolerance; with having 
exhibited instances of cruelty which are at variance with the ge- 
neral bent of his character; but his main object seems to have 
been consistent with wisdom; and to this day, we probably en- 
joy the fruits of his success. 

The Saxons, whom Pepin and Charles Martel had already 
combated, with whom Charlemagne was destined to be involved 
in a much longer conflict, were divided into Ostphalen, or East- 
phalians, to the east; Westphalen, or Westphalians, to the west; 
and Engern, or Angarians, in the centre. Their northern fron- 
tiers extended to the Baltic sea, their southern to the Lippe. 
Like the other Germanic nations, they were not subject to a sin- 
gle master; but to as many chiefs or kings as they counted can- 
tons, and almost villages. They held a general diet every year, 
on the banks of the Weser, at which they discussed their public 
affairs. 

At one of these meetings, probably that of ^7SL^ the Priest St. 
Libuin presented himself before them, and exhorted them to be- 
come converts to the Christian faith; announcing to them at the 
same time the approaching attack of the greatest sovereign of 
the West, who would soon ravage their country with fire and 
sword, and would exterminate the population to avenge his God. 
The assembled Saxons were strongly inclined to massacre the 
saint who addressed them in such menacing language. One old 



CHAP. XVI.] SAXON WAR. 321 

man, however, took him under his protection: he represented to 
his fellow-countrymen, that the priest was the ambassador of a 
strange, and, probably, hostile divinity; and, that, however offen- 
sive the language in which he delivered the substance of his em- 
bassy, they were bound to respect in bis person the privileges of 
an ambassador. The Saxons, in consequence, abstained from 
avenging the provocations given them by St. Libuin; but, in ha- 
tred to the God of whose threats he was the bearer, they burned 
the church of Deventer, which had just been erected, and mas- 
sacred all the Christians whom they found assembled there. 

At the same time, the Frankic diet was assembled at Worms, 
under the presidency of Charles. They considered the massacre 
of the Christians at Deventer as a national aggression, and im- 
mediately declared war on the Saxons. This war, the most fe- 
rocious, the most terrible, that the Franks ever maintained, en- 
dured for thirty-three years. Wedekind, one of the petty kings 
of the Westphalians, was distinguished from his countrymen by 
his courage, his perseverance, and his implacable hatred of the 
Franks: he deserved to be regarded as a worthy antagonist of 
Charlemagne; and, though he did not unite all his countrymen 
under his sway as a monarch, he soon obtained the foremost rank 
in their councils and their armies. But few pitched battles were 
fought between the two nations: when Charlemagne advanced 
across the country, with forces infinitely superior to those which 
the Saxons could collect, Wedekind, with his bravest followers, re- 
treated behind the Elbe, and even into Denmark; while the remain- 
ing Saxons promised submission, gave hostages, and consented to 
receive baptism, — for that, in the eyes of Charlemagne, was the 
sign of obedience and of civilization. Indeed, in other respects, the 
Frankic monarch scarcely changed the organization of Saxony. 
He left to the people their petty kings, with the title of Counts; 
their laws and internal government, which were very nearly the 
same as those of his own subjects. In proportion as he advanced, 
however, he built cities, and founded churches and bishoprics, to 
which he annexed vast grants of land. 

When the term of military service of the freemen had expired, 
and Charles retired, Wedekind returned at the head of his body 
of emigrants, raised the country anew, burnt the churches, and 
often carried his incursions into France; and, by way of reprisal, 
cruelly devastated the whole banks of the Rhine. 

The obstinacy of the Saxons; their contempt of the engagements 



322 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI. 

they had entered into; their frequent relapses into the ancient na- 
tional faith, — to the worship celebrated at the Irmensul, or Heer- 
mann-Sseule (pillar of the chieftain,) — which, after they had re- 
ceived baptism, was treated by Charlemagne as apostacy; exas- 
perated the Frankic monarch, and this part of his history is sullied 
by two or three acts of detestable cruelty. The first period of the 
war extended from 779. to 780: it had been terminated by a 
great victory obtained by Charles at Buchholz, after which the 
three confederations of the Saxons had accepted terms of peace. 
The empire of the Franks had been extended as far as the Elbe; 
and several new cities, particularly Paderborn, indicated the pro- 
gress of civilization in Northern Germany; but Wedekind, who 
was in Denmark, returned into Saxony in 782, raised the whole 
country, and defeated Charles's generals. Charles, victorious in 
his turn, demanded that all those accused by their countrymen 
of inciting this renewal of hostilities, should be given up to him. 
Four thousand five hundred were delivered into his hands, and 
he caused them all to be beheaded in the same day, in the au- 
tumn of 782, at Yerden, on the banks of the Aller. 

This atrocious act served only to exasperate the hatred of the 
Saxons, and to give to the war a character of ferocity which it 
had not previously displayed. During three years (a. d. 783-— 
785,) more numerous engagements, two great general battles, 
and frightful ravages, continued even into the heart of the win- 
ter, desolated Saxony, while, at the same time, they exhausted 
the army of the Franks: more blood was shed in three years, 
than in the nine of the preceding war. At length, however, 
Wedekind saw that a longer resistance would but aggravate the 
sufferings of his unhappy country: he demanded peace; received 
baptism; and, trusting to the honour and generosity of Charle- 
magne, repaired to his palace of Attigny on the Aisne, whence 
he departed loaded with presents. 

Wedekind was faithful to the engagements he had contracted, 
and the war in Saxony was suspended for eight years. In 793, 
it broke out again, in consequence of a general insurrection of 
the Saxon youth, who had taken no share in the previous con- 
flicts, and who thought that it was reserved for them to recover 
the national independence, and to avenge the national honour. 
This last revolt was not completely subdued till the year 804. 
Charles's only expedient for subjugating these haughty and in- 
trepid people, was, to demand of every village — almost of every 



CHAP. XVI.] CHARLEMAGNE. 32S 

family — hostages chosen from among the boldest and most high- 
spirited of their young men. He transported them into the va- 
rious half-deserted provinces of Gaul and Italy; where, severed 
by immense distances from the country and all the associations 
of their birth, they at length insensibly adopted the manners and 
sentiments of their conquerors. 

But the wounds inflicted by the sword, however cruel, heal 
more rapidly than the wasting ulcer of bad laws. Saxony — a 
country conquered after such long and desolating wars — will re- 
appear before us, after the next generation, much more populous, 
more warlike, and more in a condition to defend herself, than 
Gaul, which had triumphed over her in such repeated attacks. 
It was in the midst of these massacres, these ravages, — of all 
the violences and miseries attendant on military conquest, that 
the north of Germany passed from barbarism to civilization; that 
new cities were founded in the midst of vast forests; that laws 
were recognised by those who had long made it their glory to 
acknowledge no law; that a certain acquaintance with letters 
was the result of the spread of Christianity; lastly, that the arts 
and the enjoyments of private life were introduced as far as the 
Elbe, by the frequent travels and long residences of rich and 
powerful persons, whom Charlemagne led in his train to the ex- 
tremities of Germany. 

We have hitherto contemplated Charlemagne only in the cha- 
racter of a successful warrior: his administration, and the re- 
modelling of the empire, will form the subject of another chap- 
ter. 



{ 324 ) 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Extension of Charlemagne's Empire. — Bavaria, Hungary, Spain. — Friend- 
ship of Pope Adrian for Charlemagne. — His Death. — Pope Leo IH. — 
Conspiracy against him. — His Visit to Charles at Paderborn. — Charle- 
magne's public Entiy into Rome. — His Coronation as Emperor of the 
West. — Effect of the Government and Nation of the Franks. — Encou- 
ragement given by Charlemagne to Arts and Letters. — Musical Reforms. 
—Magnificence of Aix-la-Chapelle. — Administrative and economical Re- 
gulations in the Capitularies of Charlemagne. — Evils resulting from Sla- 
very. — Extent of Grants to the Crown Vassals. — Mode of Recruiting the 
Army. — Its fatal Effects. — Institution of Missi Dominici. — Laws of Char- 
lemagne. — Frontiers of the Western Empire. — Relations of the three 
Empires. — State of the Greek Empire. — Constantine Copronymus. — 
Iconoclast Controversy. — Leo IV. — His Death. — Irene. — Her Ambition 
and Crimes.— Project of Marriage between lier and Charlemagne. — Di- 
vision of the Empire of the Saracens. — Ommiades. — Fatin[iides. — Abbas- 
sides. — Mervan IJ. — Massacre of the Ommiades by Abul Abbas. — Khali- 
phate of the West. — Kingdom of Fez. — Abbaside, or Eastern Khaliphs. 
— Harun al Raschid. — His Love of Learning. — His Embassies to Charle- 
magne. — Division of the Vfestern Empire among his three Sons, by 
Charlemagne. — His Character as a Father. — Education of his Children. 
— Eginhard and Emma. — Death of Charlemagne's two Sons. — Change 
in the Succession. — Louis, King of Aquitaine, proclaimed Emperor and 
King.-r-His Coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. — Death of Charlemagne. — 
A. D. 800—814. 

We have taken a brief survey of the history of the two most 
important conquests of Charlemagne: that v^^hich subjected to 
his authority the whole of Italy, as far as the frontiers of the 
duchy of Benevento, with the unimportant provinces in posses- 
sion of the Greeks 5 and that which, in the first instance, devas- 
tated, and afterwards civilized, Saxony. The latter extended 
the frontiers of the emperor of the Franks to the north-east, as 
far as the Elbe. 

We shall enter into still less detail respecting the subsequent 
wars of this great king: they were less impressed with the cha- 
racter of his genius, and less connected with the history of civi- 
vilization. Having once attained the vast power which he exer- 
cised over France, Germany, and Italy, he had no need to plan 
conquests, which followed of themselves. The power of the 
surrounding nations bore so little proportion to his own, and so 
far were they from meditating a struggle with the empire of 
the Franks, or an attempt at its subversion, that they seemed to 



CHAP. XVII.] POPES ADRIAN AND LEO III. 325 

haive no other object than that of supplanting each other in their 
master's favour, and of forming a more intimate connexion with 
the Franks, the more effectually to gratify their mutual spirit of 
animosity and revenge. 

Charles would have probably confined himself within the new 
boundaries which gave a more compact form to his monarchy^ 
but the Slavonians, who inhabited the other side of the Elbe, 
summoned each other, with mutual recriminations, before his tri- 
bunal. It was at their instigation that he marched his army to 
the Oder, and even beyond it. 

The duke of Bavaria was also accused by his rivals; and, 
sentence having been pronounced against him by his peers, at 
the diet of Ingelheim, he was deposed in 788; Bavaria was 
united to the rest of Germany; and the Franks, whose territory 
thus touched the frontiers of the Avars and the Huns, penetrated 
into the country now called Hungary, and advanced upon the 
lower Danube, as far as the frontiers of the Greek empire. The 
petty Moorish or Christian princes of the Spanish border w^ere 
not less assiduous at the court of Charlemagne, nor less eager to 
accuse and attack each other for the benefit of France; they, 
in fact, compelled him to extend to the Ebro the new French 
province, which was designated by the name of the Spanish 
Marches. 

These conquests, which daily became more easy and more 
stable, and separated the enemies of the Franks from each other 
by so immense a distance, as to render all union or co-operation 
against Charlemagne impossible, laid the foundation of the new 
empire of the West, the name of which was restored by pope 
Leo HI., on Christmas-day, in the year 800. Since the conquest 
of Italy in T74, the two popes, Adrian, and after him Leo, had 
constantly acted as the lieutenants of Charlemagne. They kept 
up a regular correspondence with him; watched his ministers, 
and employed spies to discover not only the intrigues, but even 
the sentiments, of the Greeks and Lombards, against whom they 
sought to heighten the resentment of Charlemagne, that they 
might afterwards divide the spoil. Adrian, especially, whose 
reign was very long, (a. d. 772 — 795,) manifested a degree of 
enmity to the Lombard dukes, whom Charlemagne had protected 
in the excercise of their functions, which at length excited his 
distrust. Whatever was his devotedness to the church, he had 
sufficient discrimination to distinguish between the passions of 

42 



326 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. fcHAP. XVII. 

priests and the interests of Christendom. He had endeavoured 
to ascertain the truth or falsehood of a scandalous accusation 
against the pope. The dukes in the vicinity of Rome asserted 
that the pontiff sold his vassals to Saracen merchants, who sent 
them as slaves into Spain and Africa. The pope acknowled'^-ed 
(a. d. 780) that this traffic in Christians had taken place in his 
port of Civita Vecchia; but he retorted the accusation upon his 
accusers, declaring that the Lombards had been compelled by 
famine to sell each other. The question was never satisfactorily 
cleared up; and Charlemagne, although he treated the pope with 
every mark of respect, ceased from that time to follow his 
counsels. 

Leo III., the successor of Adrian, had neither evinced less 
devotedness to Charles, nor betrayed less personal ambition. 
He had, however, excited a violent resentment at Rome. A 
conspiracy had been formed against him in 799, by some priests. 
He had been arrested and wounded: it was even reported that 
the conspirators had torn out his eyes and tongue, and that he 
had immediately recovered them by a miracle. He escaped, 
after some hours, from the hands of his enemies, and, on the in- 
vitation of Charles, visited that monarch at Paderborn — the cen- 
tre of the recent conquests which he had achieved for Christianity. 
It was there resolved that Charlemagne should take a new 
journey into Italy, and punish the conspirators; and there, proba- 
bly, was arranged the solemn coronation which Leo III. was 
preparing for Charlemagne; though this project was enveloped 
in profound secrecy, lest it should disgust the Franks and other 
barbarian nations, who had hitherto acknowledged Charlemagne 
a^ their chief. On the 24th of November, a. d. 800, Charle- 
magne made his entry into Rome. Seven days after, before an 
assembly of Frankic and Roman lords, he permitted Leo III. to 
exculpate himself, on oath, from the accusation preferred against 
him; and upon the authority of this single testimony of his inno- 
cence, he condemned his enemies to death, as calumniators and 
conspirators. In return for these marks of favour, on Christmas- 
day, after performing mass in the church of the Vatican, before 
Charles and the assembled people, Leo advanced towards him, 
and placed a golden crown upon his head. Immediately the 
clergy and the pope exclaimed, according to the formula observed 
for the Roman emperors, — " Long life and victory to the august 
Charles, crowned by God great and pacific emperor of the Ro- 



CHAP. XVII.] CHARLEMAGNE. 327 

mans!" These acclamations and this crown were considered as 
expressing the revival of the empire of the West, after an inter- 
ruption of 324 years from the period when Agustulus was 
deposed. 

In receiving the imperial crown, Charlemagne might be said 
to adopt the recollections of Rome and of the empire. By this 
act he declared himself the representative of ancient civilization, 
of social order, and legitimate authority, and not of the barbaric 
conquerors, who founded all their rights upon the sword. By 
thus allowing their chief to receive a Roman dignity in exchange 
for the rank which he held from them, the Franks unconsciously 
subjected themselves to be treated like the Romans. The chan- 
cery of Charlemagne adopted all the pompous titles of the court 
of Byzantium; and the nobles and counsellors of the new em- 
peror no longer approached iiim without placing one knee on the 
ground, and kissing his foot. 

Whatever opinion may be formed concerning an etiquette, 
which, perhaps, Charles himself despised, he at least evinced 
great zeal in his efforts to administer the government of his king- 
dom according to law, and to revive a taste for science, litera- 
ture, and the useful arts. He gave a new impulse to that vast 
portion of Europe which submitted to his sway; and though its 
action was for a long time suspended or paralyzed, from him 
may be dated the birth of modern civilization. 

It was in Italy, more especially, that Charles sought teachers, 
for the purpose of re-establishing the public schools, which, 
throughout the whole of France, had fallen into decay. 

" He assembled at Rome," says his historiographer, the monk of 
Angouleme, " masters versed in the arts of grammar and arith- 
metic, whom he brought into France, enjoining them to encou- 
rage and diffuse a taste for letters; for, before the reign of our 
lord Charles, no attention had been paid in France to the liberal 
arts." At the same time, Charles wrote to all the bishops and 
convents to resume those studies, which had been too much ne- 
glected. " In the writings," said he, " frequently addressed to 
us by the convents of late years, while we admired the good 
sense of the monks, we observed that their style was unculti- 
vated; that what a pious devotion faithfully dictated internally, 
they were unable to express externally, without betraying their 
neglect and ignorance of language. Our wish is," he added, 
' that you should all be, what all soldiers of the church ought 



328 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVII. 

to be, inwardly devout, outwardly learned^ chaste, that you may 
live well; erudite, that you may speak well." 

Among the revolutions in art accomplished by Charlemagne, 
must be mentioned that of music. This may be particularly at- 
tributed to the importance attached to church singing, and to the 
substitution of the Gregorian for the Ambrosian chant. It was 
not, however, without difficulty, that the united authority of the 
emperor and the pope triumphed over the habits and the obsti- 
nacy of the Frankic priests: orders, threats, were insufficient; 
it was necessary to seize and burn, by main force, all the books 
or antiphonaries of the Ambrosian ritual. Charlemagne went so 
far as to yield to the solicitations of the pope, and condemned 
to the flames some of the singers as well as the music. The 
Frankic priests at length submitted to adopt the Roman mode of 
singing. *' Only," says a chronicler of that time, " the Franks, 
whose voices were naturally rough and barbarous, could not exe- 
cute the trills and cadences, nor the alternately sustained and 
interrupted sounds of the Romans; they rather broke them in 
their throats, than uttered them. Two normal schools of reli- 
gious music were founded for the whole empire: one in the pa- 
lace of the emperor, which adjoined his chapel, and which was 
at last fixed at Aix-la-Chapelle — whence, probably, the French 
name of that city; the other at Metz. 

The other fine arts were also patronised by Charles; and his 
taste in this respect is the more remarkable, as every sentiment 
of art seemed obliterated from the minds of his contemporaries: 
but the sight of Rome had struck him with admiration; and he 
felt a desire to transplant to the confines of Germany the beau- 
ties which so impressively marked the ancient grandeur of Rome, 
At the beginning of his reign, he changed his residence every 
winter; nor, since the abandonment of Paris by its kings, had 
any preference indicated which was the capital of France. As, 
however, he advanced in age, he became more attached to Aix- 
la-Chapelle. He adorned that city with sumptuous edifices, pa- 
laces, churches, bridges, and new streets: he even supplied it 
from Ravenna with marble, and with statues, the beauty of which 
had particularly excited his admiration. Hydraulic architecture 
attracted, in its turn, his attention. He formed a project of 
connecting the Rhine and the Danube by a navigable canal, and 
pursued it with great ardour and perseverance; but, after the 
expenditure of immense sums, he was compelled to relinquish 



CHAP. XVII.] ADMINISTRATION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

it; either because art was not yet sufficiently advanced, or be- 
cause the measures adopted were not judiciously conceived. 

Even the details of domestic economy were the objects of the 
care and the legislation of Charlemagne. His revenues were 
mainly drawn from landed estates of immense extent. These 
estates were dispersed through every part of his empire, and in- 
habited by a numerous class of subjects called Fiscalins. The 
serfs of the fisc, or royal treasury, were of a rather higher order 
than tliose of the nobles: Charles published a law, or Capitulary, 
for their government, which contains the most important infor- 
mation respecting the civilization of Europe at that period. He as- 
signed to each royal city a judge, who also filled the office of 
steward and administrator. The judge received all the produce 
in kind, and sold it for the benefit of the monarch. As a proof of 
the attention which Charles paid to the most minute details, the 
order which he gave to these judges, to breed hens and geese, to 
sell their eggs, and to cultivate every kind of fruit and vegetables 
in his gardens and immense estates, has often been quoted. 

These judges, however, exercised far more important functions, 
for they fixed the vocation of every man under their authority. 
The emperor determined that each of his royal cities should con- 
tain a certain number of men of all the professions and trades spe- 
cified by him, from the highest to the lowest. Upon the judge de- 
volved the duty of selecting, among the fiscal slaves, those whom 
he thought best qualified for each of these occupations, and to 
bind them out as apprentices, and thus provide a supply of hands 
for all the trades. On every occasion, rule and authority were 
substituted for personal interest; and what among us is done from 
voluntary enterprise, was done by order in the empire of Charle- 
magne. 

In a reign which had already lasted more than thirty years, 
Charles had communicated an impulse which rapidly accele- 
rated the progress of civilization. Extending his protection equal- 
ly to public education, to literature, arts, and laws, he could not 
have failed to raise the character of the nation, had he fixed it upon 
a broader basis. Unfortunately, the benefit of these improvements 
was confined to the extremely small minority of freemen, who, 
lost amid thousands of slaves, soon relapsed into the barbarism 
by which they were universally surrounded. Slavery' — the con- 
suming canker of great states — which had already effected the 
ruin of the Roman empire, was equally destructive to that of 



S30 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, [cHAP. XYII. 

Charlemagne, and drew upon it those unparalleled disasters which 
quickly followed his brilliant reign. Nor ought we, perhaps, to 
blame the legislator for this: for neither he nor his subjects were 
more competent to conceive (what had never existed) a society 
without slaves, than we to conceive a society without poor. In 
the only form of society known at that period, the exhaustion 
produced by slavery was the consequence of property itself. The 
increase of riches was inevitably followed by the absorption of the 
small properties by the great; by the multiplication of slaves, and 
the absolute discontinuance of all free labour. When freemen 
were unable to maintain themselves in idleness by the labour of 
others, rather than be confounded with slaves in the common 
employments of husbandry, they sold their little inheritance to 
some rich neighbour, and joined the army: their families soon be- 
came extinct. 

The more the emperor extended his conquests, the greater was 
the quantity of disposable land with which he could reward his 
servants: the more their ambition was gratified, the more they 
thought themselves entitled to still larger grants. According to 
the notions of those times, jurisdiction — indeed, sovereignty itself 
—was so blended Vv^ith property, that each of the dukedoms, earl- 
doms, and lordships that Charles conferred on his captains, was 
not merely a government, but a patrimony, stocked with slaves 
who laboured for their masters. In his grants to the convents, we 
invariably find that he gives them lands *' with all the inhabitants, 
their houses, slaves, meadows, fields, moveables, and immovea- 
bles." Several thousands of families were doomed to labour to 
maintain a courtier; and the learned Alcuin, whom Charles had 
enriched by his liberality, though he had not raised him to a level 
with the dukes and bishops of his court, had twenty thousand 
slaves under his orders. 

By consulting the collection of the laws of Charlemagne, known 
under the name of Capitularies, we see more clearly how it was 
that the free population of his empire necessarily disappeared, to 
make room for a servile population. One of the principal ob- 
jects of these laws was to show how every Frank must contri- 
bute to the defence of his country; march when the heerbann 
(the summons to the army) was proclaimed, or suffer severe pu- 
nishment if he failed in this duty. All the proprietors of a manse 
of land were called out to serve in the army. The manse, va- 
lued at twelve acresj seems to have been considered sufficient 



CHAP. XVII.] MILITARY SERVICE. S31 

for the maintenance of a servile family; but he only who pos- 
sessed three or more manses, was obliged to march in person: he 
who possessed only one, was to join with three of his equals in 
providing a soldier. This gratuitous military service necessarily 
led to the ruin of the freemen. The soldier was obliged to pro- 
cure arms at his own expense: he was required to present him- 
self with a lance and shield, or with a bow, two strings, and 
twelve arrows. He was also to bring a sufficient quantity of pro- 
visions for his subsistence till he joined the army; after which 
he received an allowance, or rations, for three months, from the 
treasury. This service was not regarded as excessive under the 
Merovingian kings, when wars were not frequent, and the sol- 
dier was not marched to a great distance from his home. But 
under Charlemagne, when every year was marked by some new 
expedition, and when the Frankic army, called to take the field 
against the Saracens, Danes, or Huns, traversed the whole of 
Europe and underwent the inconveniences of every climate, gra- 
tuitous service was attended with the most intolerable vexations. 
Families in circumstances of ease and comfort were soon plunged 
into poverty; the population rapidly declined; liberty and pro- 
perty were a burden rather than an advantage. Whoever, after 
a summons, neglected to join the army, was punished by a fine* 
of sixty golden sous; and as this sum generally exceeded his 
means, he was reduced to a state of temporary slavery till he 
paid it. This law, if rigorously executed, would, of itself, have 
sufficed to occasion the rapid disappearance of the whole class of 
freemen. As a mitigation, the legislator allowed the person 
whose misfortune it was to die in this state of slavery, to be con- 
sidered as having discharged this fine, so that his property was 
not seized, nor his children reduced to captivity. 

The most important political innovation introduced by Charle- 
magne into the administration of his kingdom, was the creation 
of the imperial deputies named missi dominici. These were 
two officers — one an ecclesiastic, the other a layman, both of high 
rank — -to whom Charles assigned the inspection of a district com- 
posed of a certain number of earldoms or counties. Their office 
was to inquire into the conduct of the judges and counts; to re- 
gulate the finances; to receive and examine the accounts of the 
royal cities, the revenues of which constituted the principal riches 

* The fine itself, from a common enough misuse of language, has been com- 
monly called heribannum. The arriere-ban is a corruption of this. — TVansl 



332 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVII. 

of the sovereign. They were to visit each county every three 
months, and hold assizes for the administration of justice. 
*' They are also," says the legislator, *'to be present in the 
middle of May, each in his legation, attended by all our bishops, 
abbots, counts, and vassals, attorneys, and vidames of abbeys. 
Every count shall be attended by his vicars, centenaries, and 
three or four of his principal echevins, or aldermen. After 
having examined into the state of the Cliristian religion, and that 
of the ecclesiastical orders, the deputies shall inquire in what 
manner those invested with power discharge their duties^ whether 
they govern the people according to the will of God and to our 
orders, and whether they act in concert." 

Charlemagne had not attempted to give to his people a new 
civil or criminal code; on the contrary, he confirmed the right 
which his subjects claimed, to be governed according to their na- 
tional laws, and convicted solely on the testimony of men, or by 
the judgment of God; thus excluding all proceedings by inquest 
or torture, which the example of the ecclesiastical courts intro- 
duced at a much later period. Charles republished, with some 
corrections and additions, the ancient laws of the Salians, Ripua- 
rians, Lombards, Saxons, and other subjugated nations. He pre- 
served the fundamental principle of all these laws — the compen- 
sation of crimes by fines — only subjecting some of them to a 
higher tariff; as, for instance, offences against the clergy; which 
were punished with increased severity. The examination of all 
these laws leaves no doubt respecting the frequency of atrocious 
crimes; and in proportion as either the codes of barbarians, or 
those of Charlemagne, are studied with attention, we arrive at 
the conviction that the civilization so often unfavourably con- 
trasted with the simplicity of the good old times, was the only 
remedy for the profound corruption of morals which marked the 
ages of semi -barbarism. 

The examination of the labours of Charlemagne as a legis- 
lator, adds, unquestionably, to the idea we have formed of his 
genius. We find him every where establishing order and regu- 
larity, and extending his powerful protection to every part of his 
states; but, in the midst of his greatest glory, it is not difficult to 
foresee the inevitable ruin of all these institutions, if we keep in 
view that the nation of the Franks was, at that period, exclusive- 
ly composed of proprietors of men and of land: they alone were 
rich and independent, consulted on public affairs, admitted to 
the discussions of the Champ de Mai, and to service in the army. 



CHAP. XVII.] GREEK EMPIRE. 333 

In proportion as their riches, which were all territorial, increased, 
their number decreased. The apparent progress of opulence 
was a symptom of a diminution of real strength, because every 
new rich man represented and replaced several ancient free fa- 
milies. It should, therefore, excite no surprise that the mass of 
the people attracted scarcely any notice^ that they took no in- 
terest in their aftairs; were conscious neither of energy nor of 
thought; nor that the nation passed in an instant from the height 
of power to the last degree of abasement. Some thousands of 
noblemen, lost among millions of brutalized slaves, who had 
scarcely a claim to a country or even to the dignity of man, were 
incompetent, by their own unaided efforts, to preserve to France 
either lier laws, her power, or her liberty. 

The frontiers of the new empire of the West in Italy and II- 
lyria, met those of the Eastern empire. The navigation of the 
Latins likewise forced them to maintain some commercial inter- 
course with the empire of the khaliphs of Syria. In spite of na- 
tional prejudices and religious animosities, the three empires 
which divided the civilized world considered each other as 
equals; and the relations of Charlemagne with the courts of 
Constantinople and of Bagdad, were unquestionable evidences 
of the rank to which the monarchy of the Franks had raised 
itself. 

At Constantinople, three sovereigns of the Isaurian race had 
successively occupied the throne of the East, from 717" to 780. 
Leo III. had courageously repulsed the Saracens. Constantine 
Copronymus, whom the Catholics have represented as a tyrant, 
was, perhaps, cruel in his persecution of the worshippers of 
images: but, during his long reign, (from 741 to 774,) he gave 
ample evidence of activity and courage. He had waged war by 
turns upon the banks of the Euphrates and of the Danube; he 
had taught the Greeks, that the ancient prejudice which retained 
their sovereigns prisoners in the palace, was not less fatal to the 
princes than to the people; and that a monarch lost nothing of 
his dignity by heading his legions on horseback, and leading 
them himself against the enemy. His wise administration had 
restored plenty to the Greek provinces; and by means of new 
colonies, he had repeopled the dese^'ts of Thrace. Leo IV., his 
son, during his shorter reign, (from 775 to 780,) had shown less 
strength of character; but he was not devoid of the qualities 
which had distinguished the Isaurian race, and which, after so 

43 



534 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVII. 

long a series of calamities, liad restored, in the eighth century, 
the glory and power of the Eastern empire. 

But the three Isaurian emperors, who had seen with indignation 
Christianity degenerate into idolatry, had been, during the whole 
of their reigns, involved in a dangerous war against the worship- 
pers of images; against the monks and priests, who made a 
scandalous traffic of the protection of these household gods, and 
of the miracles they pretended to perform by their intercession. 
The emperors thought they could reform the church by their 
edicts, and attempted to arrest the progress of this superstition 
by threats, severity and punishments. The religious passion they 
combated, derived additional force from opposition: and they 
themselves, misguided by the animosity excited during a long 
struggle, transgressed all bounds of moderation, and rendered 
themselves odious to their subjects by their intolerance. Their 
reign was unceasingly agitated by seditions: the monks continually 
incited their subjects to revolt; and when the seditious were pu- 
nished for their audacity, they were revered as martyrs. Irri- 
tated by their preaching, their abuse, and their plots, Leo IV. 
carried his persecution so far as toinflict the punishment of death 
upon some of the worshippers of images. During the heat of 
his resentment, he discovered, even in his wife's bed, two images 
to which she had offered secret worship. (Feb. 710.) Leo took 
cruel vengeance on those who had introduced into his own palace 
a superstition which he held in abhorrence: he expressed his in- 
dignation at the conduct of Irene, and was preparing to take 
measures for her trial — perhaps for her death— -when suddenly, 
in attempting to place upon his head a crown consecrated by his 
wife to the crucifix, his skin became covered with black pustules 
wherever the crown touched it: he was seized with a burning 
fever, and died in a few hours. All the ecclesiastical writers 
have represented this as a miracle wrought to avenge the offended 
deity. 

Irene, who, there is every reason to believe, had assisted in 
the performance of this miracle, — probably the only means which 
could liave saved her, — was still not entirely out of danger. She 
caused herself to be crowned, together with her son, Constantine 
v., who was not more than ten or twelve years old, reserving to 
herself the sole authority. But she had against her, all the gran- 
dees, jealous of the power of a woman; all the partisans of the 
late emperor, who had not much faith in miracles, which so con- 



CHAP. XVII.] ICONOCLAST CONTROVERSY. S35 

veniently dispose of kings; all the high iconoclast clergy; all the 
public functionaries raised to power by her predecessors, and 
all the Isaurians. Irene sought protection in the populace, who 
were under the guidance of the monks. She re-established the 
worship of images with great pomp; honoured as martyrs those 
who had suffered under the iconoclasts; shut up the brothers of 
her husband in convents; put to death some whom she accused 
of conspiracy; and thus obtained a high reputation for piety and 
zeal in the cause of orthodoxy. 

The popes had invariably taken part against the iconoclast 
emperors. They had aided Irene with all their power; and the 
second council of Nice, assembled by this empress, having in 
787 re-established and confirmed the worship of images, Adrian, 
whose legates had presided in this council, transmitted its acts 
to the assembly of the Western church, which Charlemagne con- 
voked at Frankfurt in 794, that they might be recognised as pro- 
ceeding from an oecumenical council, and having the force of 
ecclesiastical law. 

The Western churches had abstained neither from the super- 
stitions nor the subtleties which disfigured Christianity; but they 
had invariably rejected with horror the worship of images, as an 
act of idolatry. It is probable that the almost absolute ignorance 
or neglect of the fine arts had contributed to preserve the Franks 
and Germans from the adoration of these gods made with man's 
hands. Images were seldom seen in their churches, while they 
adorned all the temples of the Greeks. At least, the chronicles 
of the time, and the lives of the saints, when speaking of the Latin 
church, never mention that protection granted to a particular per- 
son or country by a miraculous image, so continually referred to 
in the history of the church of the Greeks. In the West, all 
these local miracles were attributed to relics, as they were in the 
East to images. The worship of the bones of the saints was more 
in accordance with the barbarism and the gloomy northern imagi- 
nations of the Teutonic people, as that of their resemblance was 
with the refinement and taste of the Greeks. The church of Rome 
availed itself of either, indifferently; and although, even in Italy, 
images were much more rare than in Greece, they were much less 
so than beyond the Alps. The popes were indebted to this quar- 
rel for their sovereignty in Italy; as they were to the adoration 
of relics for the treasures which they every year received from 
France and Germany, in exchange for the bones taken from the 
catacombs. 



336 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVII. 

But th^ influence of the pope was not sufficient to secure the 
reception, in the Western church, of the doctrine which he had 
himself found so profitable. The fathers assembled at Frankfurt 
expressed their indignation at the idolatry attempted to be in- 
troduced into Christendom. " It has been thought proper," 
say they, " to refer to the assembly the question of the new sy- 
nod of the Greeks, on the subject of the worship of images, in 
which it is written, that those who refuse to offer to the images of 
the saints the same worship and adoration as to the divine Trini- 
ty, shall be anathematized; but our most holy fathers above men- 
tioned, rejecting, in every respect, the adoration service, (the wor- 
ship of latria and duUa,) despised and condemned them with one 
accord." 

The entire church seemed divided: three hundred and fifty 
bishops had subscribed to the council of Nice; three hundred sub- 
cribed to that of Frankfurt. The latter was besides supported by 
the powerful authority of Charlemagne, who himself dictated a 
treatise against the worsliip of images, known under the title of 
the Carolinian Books. 

Adrian had no mind to expose himself to the displeasure of 
such a protector. He endeavoured to evade the question; to dis- 
criminate, where there was no distinction; to show that the infal- 
lible council of Frankfurt had been still more mistaken as to facts 
than as to principles; that the council held at Nice (not at Con- 
stantinople) had not said what the Germans imputed to it; and 
that, in spite of the contradictory declarations of these two assem- 
blies, the unity of faith of the church was not shaken; in short, 
he succeeded in silencing the discussion. The two councils are 
recognised as having the authority of lav/ in the church. The two 
doctrines repose in peace beside each, other: for France and Ger- 
many, although they have not expelled images from their temples, 
pay them no religious worship; while Italy and Spain have con- 
firmed the adoration of images, and daily celebrate some miracle 
of their local divinities. 

From the beginning of her reign, the empress Irene had sought 
the friendship of the powerful monarch of the Latins, and had 
entertained the project of bringing about a marriage between her 
son and one of the daughters of Charlemagne: but — whether the 
dispute concerning images had occasioned any coolness between 
them, or whether Irene, actuated by jealousy towards her son, 
thought it imprudent to procure him so powerful an ally — the 



CHAP. XVII.] IRENE. 337 

treaty was broken off in an offensive manner. Constantine VI. 
married an Armenian princess; and some hostilities upon the 
frontiers of the duchy of Benevento were the consequences of 
this rupture between the Greeks and the Franks. 

On the other hand, the ambitious Irene, who had so exactly 
chosen the favourable moment for getting rid of her husband, that 
she might reign in the name of her son, could not submit to share 
the authority with him, when he had attained the age of manhood. 
A long protracted struggle ensued between the mother and the 
son, during which Irene was banished to Athens, the place of 
her birth. By feigning unconditional submission, she at lengtn 
induced Constantine to recall her to the court of Constantinople, 
where she employed her ascendency over him in leading him into 
oblique and perilous courses. 

In the year 792, the emperor had punished a conspiracy of his 
uncles against him, by depriving two of their sight and cutting 
off the noses of the other four. In January, 795, he repudiated 
the Armenian Maria, whom he charged with conspiracy, and 
married in her place one of her attendants, named Theodora. 
Irene herself had urged him to gratify this new passion; while at 
the same time she denounced him to the clergy, and especially 
to the monks, over whom she preserved unlimited influence, for 
having violated the laws and discipline of the church. By these 
artifices, she succeeded in exciting the priests and bigots to sedi- 
tion, and in organizing plots both m the capital and provinces. 
At last the conspirators, under her direction, seized the unfortu- 
nate Constantine, on the 15th of June, 797; dragged him into the 
chamber in which he was born, and tore out his eyes with such 
barbarous violence, that he expired a short time after in horrible 
agonies. 

Irene was then placed on the throne; and, for the first time, 
the Roman world was governed by a woman, who ruled not as a 
regent or guardian, but in her own proper right. The church 
shut its eyes to Irene's crimes, in consideration of her having re- 
established the worship of images, v/hich her son had lately in- 
terdicted; and the Greeks assigned her a place among the saints 
in their calendar. But the supposed weakness of a female reign 
was probably what imboldened Leo III. to dispose of the crown 
of the East, as if it had been his own; or suggested to him a 
scheme more extravagant still, — that of uniting by marriage the 
empire he had just re-established, with that which had stood the 



S38 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVH, 

shock of ages. In 801, whilst Charles, who had passed a year 
in widowhood, was in Italy for his coronation, he demanded the 
hand of Irene; and though this ambitious princess was far from 
intending to compromise herpower, by dividing it with a husband, 
the negotiation, which continued for a long time, contributed to 
preserve peace between the two empires. 

The relations which subsisted between the empire of Charle- 
magne, and that of the Saracens, form a characteristic part of 
his history. His territories bordered upon theirs in Spain; he 
found them again in Africa, along the whole line of coast opposite 
to the shores of France and Italy; and his subjects carried on an 
extensive commerce with them in the Levant. But the Saracens 
had ceased to form a single empire. Just at the time when the 
Carlovingian dynasty succeeded the ancient royal line of France, 
the house of the Abbasides had succeeded that of the Ommiades 
in the East. The colossus that had bestridden the whole South 
was now broken, and the Musulmans were no longer objects of 
terror to all their neighbours. This revolution did more for the 
deliverance of Europe from the Musulman arms, than even the 
battle of Poictiers. Romance writers are therefore guilty of an 
anachronism, in making Charlemagne the champion of Christen- 
dom; for, in his time, the perils to which it had been exposed 
were past. 

The Ommiades, who, for the space of ninety years, (661 — 750,) 
had ruled v/ith so much glory in the empire of the faithful, had 
nevertheless always been considered, by a large party in the East, 
as usurpers; they were reproached with being descendants of the 
most inveterate enemy of the prophet, wliilst there still remained 
legitimate descendants of the branch of Hashemides, and even of 
his own blood. The Ommiades were distinguished by their white 
standards; the colour of the Fatimides, descendants of Ali and of 
Fatima, the daughter of Mahommed, was green. At the time we 
speak of, their chiefs had either not sufficient ability or sufficient 
ambition to enforce their rights. But the descendants of Abbas, 
the uncle of the prophet, called Abbasides, whose banner was 
black, ultimately raised the whole East in their favour. 

After long and cruel civil wars, Mervan II., the last of the 
Ommiades, in spite of tlie talents and virtues imputed to him, was 
defeated and killed in Egypt, on the 10th of February, 750. Abul 
Abbas, the first of the Abbasides, was appointed his successor by 
Abu-Moslem, the real chief of the party, the king-maker, as he 



CHAP. XVII. ] OMMIADES AND ABBASIDES. 3S9 

is called, or the autlior of the vocation of the Mbasides. The 
throne of the new khaliph was strengthened by the victories of 
Abu -Moslem. The defeated Ommiades accepted the peace that 
was offered them, and relied with confidence on the oaths of their 
rival. Four and twenty members of the family were invited to 
Damascus, to a feast of reconciliation, which was to be the seal of 
a new alliance. They met without suspicion: they were massa- 
cred without mercy. The festive board was placed over their 
palpitating bodies while they yet breathed, and the orgies of the 
Abbasides were prolonged amidst the groans and agonies of their 
expiring rivals. 

One only of the Ommiades escaped this butchery; he quitted 
Syria, and traversed Africa a fugitive: but in the valleys of Mount 
Atlas, he learned that the white flag was still triumphant in Spain. 
About the middle of August, therefore, 755, he presented himself 
to his partisans on the coast of Andalusia, and was saluted by 
them as the true khaliph; the whole of Spain was soon subject to 
him, and his seat of government was fixed at Corduba. There he 
took the title of Emir al Mumenin, Commander of the Faithful; 
which the people of the West converted into the barbarous name 
Miramolin. He died after a glorious reign of thirty years. His 
son and his grandson, Hesham, (a. d. 788 — 796,) and Al Hacam, 
(796 — 822,) were the contemporaries of Charlemagne, and fought 
with success several times against his generals, and against his 
son Louis le Debonnaire. The Ommiades of Spain retained the so- 
vereignty of the Peninsula for two hundred and fifty years: their 
dynasty expired in 1038; and the division, at this period, of the 
Western khaliphate into a great number of small principalities, 
contributed much to facilitate the conquests of the Christians. 

Towards the middle of the eighth century, an independent 
monarchy arose in Africa, that of the Edrisides of Fez, who de- 
clared themselves descendants of the Fatimide branch, and who 
recognised neither the Western nor the Eastern khaliph. In the 
year 801, Charlemagne received an embassy from their emir, or 
sultan, Ibrahim; and being then at war with the Ommiades in 
Spain, he was disposed to ally himself to their rivals in Africa 
and the East. These latter, the Abbaside khaliphs, notwithstand- 
ing the loss of so many vast provinces in the West, still retained 
a degree of power not unworthy the first successors of Mahom- 
med; and the splendour of their court presented a remarkable 
contrast to the severe austerity of the first believers. The victo - 
rious Almanzor, (754 — 775,) his son, and two grandsons, Mahdi, 



340 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVII. 

(77-5—785,) Hadi, (785, 786,) and Harun al Rashid, (786—809,) 
were the contemporaries of the early Carlovingians. These were 
the monarchs who introduced the arts and the cultivation of science 
among the Arabs, and under whose influence their progress in the 
career of literature was as rapid as that which thej had recently 
made in arms. Translations of all the scientific books of the 
Greeks into Arabic were undertaken, and liberally rewarded by 
the khaliph. Harun al Rashid was always surrounded by learned 
men, and in all his travels he was attended by a numerous body 
of them. He made it a rule never to build a mosque without at- 
taching a school to itj and his munificence is the source whence 
sprung those numerous Arabic writers by whom his age was il- 
lustrated. The memory of the two embassies from Harun al 
Rashid to Charlemagne, has been preserved to us by the writers 
of the West; the one in 801, the other in 807. The first am- 
bassadors of Harun, with chivalrous politeness, bore the keys of 
the holy sepulchre as an offering to the greatest monarch profess- 
ing the religion of Christ. The second brought as a present 
from the khaliph to Charles, a clock ornamented with automaton 
figures, which moved and played on various musical instru- 
ments, very much resembling those which are now made at Ge- 
neva for the Levant market. This is a proof, among others, that 
the seat of the mechanical arts, as well as of literature and 
science, has, in the course often centuries, been wholly changed. 
After the reign of Harun al Rashid, the empire of the khaliphs, 
the seat of which had been removed to Bagdad, by Almanzor, in 
757, still maintained for several ages the glory of pre-eminence 
in literature and the arts, though it almost entirely relinquished 
its triumphs in arms. The foundation of the new dynasties of 
the Aglabides in Africa, the Fatimides in Egypt, the Taherides 
in Khorasan, the SofFarides in Persia, would soon throw us into 
absolute confusion, if we attempted to follow out such a laby- 
rinth of almost unknown names and countries. 

Mean time, Charlemagne, dreaded by his enemies, respected by 
the whole v/orld, became sensible of the approach of old age. 
He had three sons arrived at manhood, among whom he divided 
his monarchy, in presence of the diet of Thionville, in 806. To 
Charles, the eldest, he gave France and Germany; to Pepin, the 
second, Italy, Bavaria, and Pannonia; to Louis, the youngest. 
Aquitaine, Provence, and the marches of Spain. At the same 
time he provided for his daughters: he had seven, perhaps eight, 
all remarkable for their beauty, and whom he had always treated 



OHAP. XVII.] FAMILY OF CHARLEMAGNE. 341 

with great tenderness. " He had devoted," says Eginhard, 
** much attention to the education of his children, and was desi- 
rous that his daughters, as well as his sons, should addict themselves 
to the same liberal studies which he had himself pursued. When 
his sons were of sufficient age, he accustomed them, according to the 
usage of the Franks, to ride on horseback, and to exercise them- 
selves in arms and in the chase. To form his daughters to habits of 
industry, and counteract the pernicious influence of a life of ease 
and luxury, they were taught to work in wool, to handle the distaff 
and the spindle, and to employ themselves in all the works be- 
coming their sex and age. His children always supped with him. 
His sons accompanied him on horseback when he travelled, his 
daughters followed j and the whole train was closed by the guards, 
who protected them. As they were very beautiful, and greatly be- 
loved by him, it is strange that he never gave them in marriage 
to any of his nobles or allied princes. He kept them always 
with him till his death, declaring that he could not dispense with 
their society: yet, however happy in every other respect, through 
them he felt the malice of fortune. It is true, he dissembled his 
grief, and appeared as if slander had never raised its voice, or 
breathed the slightest suspicion upon them." It is said that the 
historian, from whom we borrow these particulars, was not a 
stranger to the failings to which he alludes; and that the fair 
Emma, one of the daughters of Charlemagne, carried her lover, 
Eginhard, on her shoulders, in the morning, that his footsteps in 
the snow might not betray his nocturnal visits to her pavilion. 
This anecdote has been preserved in the convent founded by 
Eginhard himself. 

If Charlemagne bore with resignation the misconduct of his 
daughters, to whom he had always set a dangerous example, he 
betrayed the feelings of a true and tender father, when he had 
the misfortune to lose, successively, his eldest and favourite 
daughter, Rotrude; his second son, Pepin, who died at Milan, on 
the 4th of July, SIO,* and, lastly, his eldest son Charles, who died 
at Aix-la-Chapelle, on the 4th of December, 811. Fortitude in 
sustaining domestic sorrows was at that time regarded as a mark 
of the greatness of soul which was expected of a hero; hence the 
profound grief of Charlemagne, and the tears he was seen to shed 
for the loss of his children, excited more censure than compassion. 

The emperor, however, hastened to provide for the govern- 
ment of his states. His eldest son had left no children^ but Pe- 

44 



342 FALL OF TRE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVI?, 

pin, the second, had one son and five daughters. Charles des- 
tined the son, Bernhard, to inherit the kingdom of Italy; and, 
having announced this intention in the Champ de Mai, assem- 
bled at Aix-la-Chapelle, he sent him into Lombardy, accompa- 
nied by Walla, his bastard cousin, as his counsellor. At the 
same time he judged it prudent to transmit, during his lifetime, 
all his titles to his third son, Louis, king of Aquitaine. ** For this 
purpose, in the presence of the states assembled at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, in September, 813, he presented him," says an ancient 
chronicle, *' to the bishops, abbots, counts, and senators of the 
Franks, requesting them to choose him king and emperor. To 
this all consented vi^ith one accord, saying, it would be well. 
And it pleased the people also; so that the empire was decreed 
to him by the delivering up of the golden crown, while the peo- 
ple cried out,. * Long live the emperor Louis!' " Charles, fear- 
ing that the pope, who had conferred upon him the title of em- 
peror, would assert that his authority was necessary to confirm 
it to another, was desirous that his son, who belonged to the peo- 
ple of the West, to the army, and to its leaders, and who had 
been chosen by them, should hold his crown from God alone. 
He, therefore, caused a crown of gold similar to his own to be 
made, and to be placed upon the altar of the church of Aix-la- 
Chapelle. He then desired Louis to take it himself, and place 
it upon his own head. After this ceremony, he sent him back to 
Aquitaine. 

Charles lost his strength earlier than might have been expect- 
ed from the vigour of his constitution, or the active life he had 
led. His decline had long been perceptible; when, about the 
middle of January, 814, he was attacked by a fever on leaving 
the bath. During the seven days it lasted, he ceased to eat, and 
took nothing but a little water. On the seventh day he received 
the sacrament from the hand of Gildebald, his almoner. The 
following morning, he made a last effort to raise his feeble right 
hand to make the sign of the cross upon his head and breast; 
then, composing his limbs for his final rest, he closed his eyes, 
uttering, with a low voice:—-" In manus tuas commendo spiri- 
tum meum^^ and expired. 

This was on the £8th of January, 814. Charles was born in 
742, and was in his seventy-second year. He reigned forty-se- 
ven years: thirty-three over the Lombards, and fourteen over 
the Western empire. He was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the 
church of St. Mary, founded by himself. 



( 343 ) 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Louis le Debonnaire. — His Character and Popularity. — His Reforms. — Divi- 
sion of the Government with his Sons. — Vacillations of Louis. — Revolt 
of Bernhard, King" of Italy. — His cruel Death. — Judith of Bavaria. — Her 
Beauty and Ascendency. — National Assemblies. — Public Confession and 
Penance of Louis. — 'Discord between Louis and his Sons, Chlothaire and 
Louis. — Universal Disorder in the Empire. — Traffic in Christian Children. 
— External Relations. — Scandinavian Nations. — King's of Denmark. — Re- 
volts of Bretons and Gascons. — Spain. — Alphonso the Chaste.,— Abder- 
rahman. — Italy. — Chlothaire. — Duke of Benevento. — Venice. — Eastern 
Frontiers. — Slavonic Tribes. — Dechne of the liastern Empire. — Musul- 
man Conquests. — Crete. — Sicily. — Dethronement and Banishment of 
Irene. — Nicephorus. — Leo the Armenian. — His Death. — Michael the 
Stammerer. — Theophilus. — His Character and Death. — Cessation of In- 
tercourse between the Eastern and Western Empires.— Revolt of the 
three Sons of Louis. — Dethronement of Judith. — Antipathy between the 
Gauls and the Franks. — Attachment of the latter to the Emperor. — Re- 
action in his favour. — His ReconciUation with his Sons. — Recall of Judith. 
— Her Intrigues. — Desertion of the Emperor by all his Followers. — His 
public Degradation and Penance. — Death of Pepin, King- of Aquitaine. — 
Conduct of Louis. — ^Intrigues of Judith and Chlothaire. — Attacks of the 
Normans and the Saracens on the Coasts of France. — Death of Louis le 
Debonnaire. a. d. 814 — 840, 

The new sovereign of the empire of the West — whom the 
Latins, the Italians, and the Germans named the Pious,* the 
French le Debonnaire,— was thirtj-six years old at the death of 
his father. He had been married sixteen years to Ermengarde, 
daughter of Ingheramne, duke of Hasbaigne. She had already 
borne him three sons^ Chlothaire, (or, as it soon came to be 
spelled, Lothaire,) Pepin, and Louis. During thirty-three 
years he had borne the title of king; for he was in his cradle 
when, in the year 781, his father sent him into Aquitaine, with 
the view of inducing the people of the south of Gaul to imagine 
that they had their sovereign in the midst of them. As soon as 

• The Germans call him either Ludwig der Fromme^ or der Gutige, 
Fromrrit though it means pious, means, also, amiable, gracious. Gutige is 
kind, good-natured. In that part of the dominions of the king of England 
which he inherits from the dukes of Normandy, and where the Anglican ser- 
vice is performed in French, the words of the Liturgy, " our most gracious 
king, William," &c., are at this day rendered, "notre seigneur et gouver- 
aeur tres-debonnaire, Guillaume," hc^TransL 



344 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XVIII* 

he was sufficiently advanced in age to afford any certain indica- 
tions of his character, it was marked by sweetness, love of jus- 
tice, beneficence^ above all, by weakness. He had carried on a 
protracted war in the Pyrennees against tiie Gascons and the 
Moors, and had conducted himself with honour as a soldier; yet 
those who remarked his zeal for religion, his constant attention 
to the discipline of the church, already said of him, that he was 
better fitted for the convent than the throne; and Louis, who en- 
vied the devotion of his great uncle Karloman, who had abdi- 
cated sovereign power to become a monk of Monte Cassino, re- 
garded their words as the highest praise that could be bestowed 
on him. For some time his beneficence so far exceeded his pru- 
dence that his fi.nances were in considerable disorder; but these 
had been re-established with the assistance of his father, and his 
good management had enabled him to deliver the rural popula- 
tion from the destructive privilege claim.ed by the soldiery, of 
drawing their support from the peasantry. The people had the 
highest opinion of his virtue; and when, on the news of his fa- 
ther's death, he proceeded from Toulouse to Aix-la-Chapelle, he 
was received, in every place through which he passed, as a sa- 
viour come to put a period to the long-sufferings of the empire. 

Indeed, during the brilliant reign of Charlemagne, even under 
the protection of so great a man, disorder and oppression had in- 
creased in every province: the freemen had been ruined by con- 
tinual wars; the nobles had abused their favour at court; they 
had despoiled their poorer neighbours of their inheritances; a 
great number of them they had reduced to servitude. Many of 
the small proprietors had even voluntarily renounced a freedom 
they had no longer the power to defend, and had begged to be 
ranked amongst the slaves of the nobles, who promised them pro- 
tection. Louis hastened to send throughout the empire fresh im- 
perial messengers (missi dominici,) to examine into the claims and 
petitions of those who had been robbed either of their patrimony 
or of their liberty; and the number of the oppressed who reco- 
vered their rights was found to exceed all belief. The mistrust 
of Charles had deprived the Saxons and the Frieslanders of the 
right of transmitting their property by bequest to their children. 
Louis repealed this odious prohibition, and placed them on the 
same footing with his other subjects. In the Spanish marches 
many Christian emigrants from Moorish Spain had obtained from 
Charles the grant of deserted lands recently conquered, and 



CHAP. XVIII.] Louis's reforms. 345 

had brought them into cultivation^ but the fields which had been 
rendered fertile by their own labours had been quickly seized by 
powerful nobles, who in some instances had obtained fresh grants 
from the emperor, in others had taken possession by force. 
Louis afforded his protection to these unhappy emigrants, and 
restored their property^ but he had not sufficient power to secure 
to them its permanent possession: such was the audacity of the 
nobles, such the weakness of the vassals, that, in spite of every 
security the monarch could give, the poor man was continually 
plundered. 

Another reform effected by Louis was looked upon as indi- 
cating but little respect for his father's memory. Charles's palace 
at Aix-la-Chapelle sufficiently attested the dissoluteness of his 
morals. There he had lived, surrounded, even in old age, by his 
numerous mistresses. Under the same roof dwelt his seven 
daughters and his five nieces; all beautiful, and all equally dis- 
tinguished for their gallantries. Before taking possession of this 
palace, Louis effected its evacuation by means of a military ex- 
ecution: he expelled without pity even the female attendants 
who had waited on Charlemagne in his last illness; he forced his 
sisters and his cousins to retire to the seclusion of the convent; 
he condemned all their lovers, as guilty of high treason, either to 
exile or imprisonment, some of them even to death. By these 
proceedings he gave a scandalous publicity to the disorders of his 
family, which had hitherto excited but little attention. 

The immense extent of the empire imposed a burden on Louis 
which he found too heavy for him; and he hastened to lighten its 
weight by sharing it with his children. He confirmed Bernhard, 
his nephew, in the possession of the kingdom of Italy; he in- 
trusted the government of Bavaria to the eldest of his sons, and 
that of Aquitaine to the second; the third was still too young 
to receive any share of power. The empire of the West, with 
three subordinate kings on its most exposed frontiers, appeared 
to be still governed in the same manner as in the time of Charle- 
magne; and many years elapsed before foreign nations perceived 
the immense difference between the men of the two generations. 
The armies of the empire were still as formidable; the neighbour- 
ing nations, jealous of each other, were still equally active in 
keeping a reciprocal watch over each other's movements, in an- 
nouncing them to the emperor, and in obeying his orders. At 
the pleas of the kingdom, or national assemblies, which Louis le 



S46 FALL OF THfi HOMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVIII. 

Deborinaire convoked very regularly, were to be seen ambassa- 
dors from the petty Visigothic princes, who were struggling 
among the strong holds of the Pyrennees to save some part of 
Spain from the Musulman yoke; from the duke of Benevento, 
who sent tribute from Italy to the empire; from all the small 
Slavonic tribes, whether in lUyria, Bohemia, or Prussia, who 
sought the protection of the Franks; lastly, from the princes of 
Denmark, at that time distracted by a civil war and by a dis- 
puted succession to the crown. It could never have been ima- 
gined by a superficial observer, that this empire, so vast and so 
formidable, was already nodding to its fall. 

One of the defects of Louis's character, was irresolution: he 
imagined he could correct this, and determine his own wavering 
intentions, by forming continual engagements; he was constant- 
ly disposing of the future; and presently, from some fresh mo- 
tive, or some new weakness, he altered what he professed to have 
irrevocably fixed. In 814, he had made a division of his king- 
dom amongst his children; in 817, he made a second, and as- 
signed a share to each of his three sons; he took back from one 
the portion he had allotted to him, to give it to another. During 
the whole course of his reign, he was constantly occupied in rec- 
tifying and changing these partitions of territory among his chil- 
dren; then, after causing them to be confirmed by oaths of al- 
legiance, tendered by the people [and the clergy, he overthrew 
all he had appeared to be building up, and thus inspired his sub- 
jects with an extreme impatience of his continual vaciHations, a 
distrust of the future, and a discontent, the effects of which he 
soon experienced; whilst ill-humour succeeded to the gratitude 
of his sons, who felt more injured when he reclaimed his gifts, 
than they had been touched or gratified at receiving them. 

The person most offended, and not without considerable reason, 
by the partition of 817, was Bernhard, king of Italy. Towards 
his uncle he had shown the deference of a vicegerent governing 
a province in his name; but when Louis granted to his eldest 
son, Lothaire, the title of emperor, with pre-eminence over the 
three other kings, Bernhard complained of the injustice done 
him. Son of an elder brother of Louis, and himself the senior 
of his cousin Lothaire, the first rank amongst the Frankic princes 
belonged of right to him; and into his hands the sceptre of the 
empire should have passed; whether the law of succession, 
adopted in the present day had been followed, or whether the 



eHAP. XVIII.] REVOLT OF BERNHARD. ^47 

preference had been given to the claim of seniority, the very rule 
by which his uncle had taken precedence of himself. A great 
number of bishops and of discontented nobles offered their services 
to Bernhard, to support his just pretensions. The young prince 
actually assembled troops: his uncle, on his side, summoned 
soldiers from Germany^ but Bernhard, who held a civil war in 
horror, accepted the first terms proposed to him: he hastened to 
Chalons to meet his uncle, threw himself at his feet, and begged 
pardon for his offence. 

It was not without reason that Louis received the surname of 
Le Debonnaire: he seemed to be incapable of harbouring a feel- 
ing of resentment or of hatred j he often pardoned where it was 
his duty not to pardon,- nevertheless, he committed at this time 
one of the most odious acts which stain the history of France. 
Bernhard, whose rights were equal to his own, had acknowledged 
himself guilty, from sentiments of filial deference alonej he had 
placed reliance on the promises he had received, and was await- 
ing an act of oblivion for his preparations for war: instead of a 
pardon, he received sentence of death upon himself and his prin- 
cipal adherents. It is true that Louis commuted the punish- 
ment, ordering only that his eyes should be put out: such a com- 
mutation, however, did but increase the cruelty of his punish- 
ment. Queen Ermengarde took care that the operation should 
be performed in so barbarous a manner, that the unhappy Bern- 
hard died three days after from its effects. 

Ermengarde, whose motive for depriving Bernhard of life was 
the wish to divide his inheritance amongst her children, died ere 
she had had time to reap the benefits of her cruelty, and Louis was 
not long in filling her place. In the beginning of the year 819, 
he married the beautiful and ambitious Judith, daughter of the 
count Guelf, of Bavaria. At an assembly of the most beautiful 
girls in his empire, which his clergy had advised him to call to- 
gether, after the example of king Ahasuerus, Louis had distin- 
guished the pre-eminent charms of Judith. The Frankic nation 
soon found cause to regret that the daughter of count Guelf was 
endowed with that singular beauty which gave her so absolute an 
ascendency over her husband. 

It is true, the authority of Louis was by no means without re- 
straints. No monarch of the Franks had more regularly con- 
sulted the states, which he convoked twice in the year: but only 
the great barons amongst the laity and clergy were summoned 



348 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. []CHAP. XVIII. 

upon these expensive journeys^ and the dukes and counts, soon 
perceiving that the principal subjects of discussion were ecclesi- 
astical affairs, and that, in a language which they did not under- 
stand, gave up their seats almost entirely to the bishops. The 
comitiae of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the year 816, had been entirely 
occupied in reforming, in conformity with the observances of St. 
Benedict, the rules relating to canons and canonesses. At that 
assembled at Attigny, in the month of August, 822, Louis chose 
that the whole nation should be witness to his penance. He 
publicly declared that he had sinned against his nephew Bern- 
hard, in suffering him to be treated with so much cruelty; that 
he had sinned against Adelhard, Walla, against the holy men and 
the bishops who had been Bernhard's counsellors, and whom he 
had exiled for taking part in his conspiracy; finally, that he had 
sinned against the natural sons of his father, when he forced 
them to enrol themselves members of different religious orders. 
He entreated pardon for his sins, of those of the prelates in ques- 
tion who were present, and submitted himself to the canonical 
penances. 

At first it was touching to see this profound sentiment of re- 
morse manifested after the lapse of four years, before an entire 
nation, — -this voluntary self-humiliation, in one whom no tribunal 
could reach. But while remorse in a man possessed of great 
qualities offers to our admiration the noble triumph of conscience 
over pride, the repentance of a weak man is tinged with the weak- 
ness of his character. While he recalls his past offence, he ex- 
cites the anticipation that another is at hand. The one accuses 
himself because he can find no peace within his own breast; the 
other, because he cannot obtain absolution at the confessional. 
The former is actuated by the thoughts of those whom he has 
made wretched, and of the reparation there may still be time to 
offer them. The latter thinks of nothing but himself, and the 
tortures with which he is threatened; repentance in him is but a 
personal calculation; he would fain combine the hopes of the right- 
eous with the advantages of guilt. When the self-humiliation 
of Louis before the preists at Attigny was beheld by the people, 
they concluded that he was not so much oppressed by grief, as 
indifferent to honour; and the nation began to feel that contempt 
for him, of which he had acknowledged himself deserving. 

Other causes soon sprang up to increase this sentiment. On 
the 13th of June, 823, after a union of four years, Judith bore him 



CHAP. XVIII.] STATE OF GAUL. 349 

a son, afterwards known bj the name of Charles the Bald: but 
Judith's general conduct, and her familiarity with Bernhard, 
duke of Septimania, accredited amongst the Franks the idea that 
this child belonged to the favourite of the empress, and not to 
her husband. It is at least certain that the absolute power ex- 
ercised by Bernhard at the courts the deference shown by Louis 
for the friend of his wife; the trust which he reposed in him in 
preference to his own sons, of whom he was beginning to be jea- 
lous, rendered his government at once ridiculous and contempti- 
ble. Judith, who already had it in contemplation to get away from 
the elder sons of her husband such provinces as might be suffi- 
cient to form an appanage for the youngest, seized every oppor- 
tunity of insulting those princes; and, if they ever betrayed 
their vexation, she strove to excite the anger and resentment of 
her husband against them. On occasion of a disastrous campaign, 
made by Pepin beyond the Pyrennees, she prevailed on Louis to 
condemn to death two counts who had been the king of Aqui- 
taine's advisers; thus indirectly wounding the honour of the com- 
mander-in-chief, the son of her husband. Though the sentence 
was not carried into execution, it sufficed to give birth to two 
opposite factions throughout the empire. The people held the 
emperor guilty, both of the injustice of which he was the imme- 
diate cause, and of that, the consequences of which he had endea- 
voured to mitigate. When once a government has ceased to in- 
spire confidence, the very punishments with which it visits the 
great for injuries inflicted on the people, are regarded by that 
people as a fresh abuse of power. 

Still the step is wide from these disagreements amongst 
princes, from these court intrigues, to a civil war. It was not 
the resentment and disgust excited by the weakness of their fa- 
ther, or the perfidy of their stepmother, in the mind of Lothaire 
or of Pepin, that influenced the small proprietors, of whom the 
Frankic armies were exclusively composed, to arm for war at 
their own expense, and to attack their fellow-countrymen. But 
disorder was spread throughout the empire. The feebleness of 
Louis had imboldened several of the enemies of the Franks — 
the Musulmans, the Bulgarians, the Normans, to ravage the 
frontiers; in the interior, the oppression exercised by the nobles 
on the people was daily becoming more intolerable. A frightful 
traffic in slaves was secretly carried on in all parts of the empire. 

The Musulmans have always been accustomed to place great 

45 



350 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVIII. 

confidence in the slaves brought up under their own roofs^ they 
make them the guardians of their interests, their soldiers, often 
their ministers. They regarded it, too, as a work of piety and 
charity to buy the children of infidels, with the view of convert- 
ing them to the true faith. They were, therefore, always ready 
to pay a high price for the Christian children brought to them in 
Spain or in Africa. From the neighbourhood of Verdun they re- 
ceived more particularly those whom they destined to form the 
interior guard of their harems. The Jews carried on this horri- 
ble trade, and the French nobles, ecclesiastical as well as secu- 
lar, whenever they chanced to be pressed for money, sold them 
the children of their serfs, with the full knowledge of their 
destination. A law passed in the year 829, prohibiting the ad- 
ministration of baptism to the slaves of the Jews, without the 
consent of their masters, and the violent discussions which it 
excited in the diet, reveal to us the importance of this nefarious 
traffic, and the degree of oppression and of misery to which the 
whole lower class of the population of Gaul was reduced. 

The external relations of the empire of the West still seemed 
worthy of the successor of Charlemagne. Northwards, its fron- 
tier extended as far as the Eyder, which still forms the boundary 
line between the German empire and Denmark. Beyond this 
river, and throughout Scandinavia, the Danes or Normans, who 
had afforded refuge to a great number of Saxon fugitives, and 
had imbibed their hatred of Christianity and of the Frankic sway, 
began to seek occasion to wreak their vengeance, to display their 
daring valour, and to gratify their thirst of plunder. Courage 
was, in their eyes, the first of virtues: the glory of a hazardous 
expedition was regarded by every family as an inheritance more 
precious than perishable riches; the young were eager to mark 
their entry into the world by daring adventures. Not less ac- 
customed to brave the wrath of the tempest than the perils of the 
fight, they ventured forth on the ocean in small open boats: in 
these they infested the shores of Germany, of France, and of 
Great Britain; and extended the predatory warfare in which they 
gloried, to countries apparently the most secure from their at- 
tacks. But these expeditions were not as yet sanctioned by the 
national government; they were the exploits of adventurers, over 
whom the king of Denmark had no control. Indeed, at the 
time in question, that country was distracted by a civil war car- 
ried on between several cousins who aspired to the crown. The 



CHAP. XVIII.] ABDERRAHMAN. 551 

pretenders to the kingly dignity referred their claims to Louis le 
Debonnaire, and wished to make him their arbiter. In the year 
826, one of them, called Heriolt,* set out for Mentz, which 
place the emperor had appointed for their meeting: he was ac- 
companied by his wife and a numerous suite of his countrymen. 
They all declared themselves ready to embrace Christianity: 
Louis, consequently, presented Heriolt at the font of the church 
of St. Alban, where he was baptized^ and the empress Judith 
performed the same office for the queen. 

Within the boundaries of Gaul itself the imperial authority 
was but imperfectly acknowledged by the Bretons and Gascons. 
These nations, separated by their language from the Franks and 
the Gauls, submitted to the imperial government when it had suf- 
ficient vigour to make them feel that submission was inevitable^ 
but they habitually despised agriculture and every useful art. 
Whoever did not speak their language was regarded as an ene- 
my^ whatever an enemy possessed was looked upon as lawful 
spoil 5 and the first symptoms of weakness in their neighbours 
were watched, as the signal for renewed hostilities and renewed 
pillage. Mervan and Viomark, who both assumed the title of 
king of the Bretons, repeatedly forced Louis to take the fields 
for, though he confided to his representatives the command of 
more distant wars, he invariably conducted in person those in 
the interior of Gaul. Lupus Centuli, duke of the Gascons, 
showed no less obstinacy^ his agile hunters of the Pyrennees 
sallied forth from Beam and the valley of Soule, and spread ter- 
ror throughout Aquitaine: they escaped the pursuit even of the 
cavalry; and, at the very moment when their enemies thought 
them entrapped, they were far distant. 

Beyond the Pyrennees, Alphonso II., surnamed the Chaste^ 
king of Oviedo, (a. d. 791 — 842,) was carrying on an unequal 
struggle against Abderrahman, the victorious king of Corduba. 
(a. d. 822 — 852.) The former, under whom the half-fabulous 
hero, Bernardo del Carpio, distinguished himself by his exploits, 
demanded occasional succours of Louis, and, in return, rendered 
him occasional homage for the victories he gained in Galicia and 
the Asturias. The latter hardly noticed this mountain-warfare 
on the part of a small semi-barbarous nation. He had subdued 
all the rest of Spain to his government: he had suppressed seve- 
ral revolts in his own family; he had gained some brilliant vic- 

♦ Harold, or Harald, is spelt Heroult by Norman liistorians. — Transl 



352 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVIII. 

tories over the generals of Louis and his son Pepin, king of 
Aquitaine. He had driven the Franks from the banks of the 
Ebro, and reconquered from them the county of Barcelona; but 
his attention had been chiefly turned to the encouragement of 
agriculture, of commerce, of arts, and letters, in every part of 
his domains. The population of Moorish Spain was rapidly in- 
creasing: her schools acquired celebrity; her scholars multiplied, 
and her towns and cities began to appreciate the new-felt bene- 
fits of civilization and refinement of manners. Abderrahman II. 
was himself a philosopher, a poet, and a musician; and encou- 
raged by his example and his patronage the studies in which he 
took an active share. But these pursuits had not the effect of 
inclining him to renounce the pleasures of the world. Whilst 
Alphonso II., who, in concert with his wife, had made a vow of 
monastic chastity, left no children, the philosopher Abderrahman 
left forty -five sons and forty-one daughters. 

Italy was almost exclusively under the government of Lo- 
thaire, the eldest son of the emperor. Louis, who showed the 
most extreme deference to the papal authority, would, perhaps, 
have contributed to its elevation, in opposition to that of his son, 
if the lives of the five pontiffs who succeeded each other in the 
chair of St. Peter, during his reign, had been of longer dura- 
tion. This rapid succession prevented the church ft om profit- 
ing, by the weakness of the emperor, to, grasp at fresh preroga- 
tives. All the other powers subordinate to the throne acquired, 
however, greater independence. Lothaire, dreading the enmity 
of his father and his stepmother, thought it expedient to concili- 
ate all his vassals. The dukes who owed him allegiance, richer 
in wealth and in vassals than the nobles of France, began to look 
upon themselves as independent princes. The duke of Bene- 
vento, the most powerful of all, who, even under Charlemagne, 
had been a tributary, but never a subject, once more declared 
war on his own account; a proceeding not yet ventured upon by 
any other of the great nobles in the Frankic empire. Towards 
the end of Louis's reign, (a. d. 839,) it is true, this duchy was 
divided amongst three independent nobles, the princes of Saler- 
no, Benevento, and Capua. But so increased was the population 
and the wealth of these magnificent tracts of country, that this 
great fief, even when divided, still ranked amongst the most 
powerful of the empire. At this same epoch, the republics of 
Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, Greek cities, which took advantage 



CHAP. XVIII.] VENICE. S53 

of the neglect of the emperor of the East, to recover and strength- 
en their liberty, had lapidly increased in population j their troops 
were become warlike; and an extensive trade with the Arabs, 
the Greeks, and the Latins, spread affluence and prosperity with- 
in their walls. It is true, the rise of a new power in their neigh- 
bourhood inspired them with anxiety: the Saracens had esta- 
blished several military colonies at the mouths of the Garigliano, 
at Cuma, and at la Licosa. 

On the other hand, Venice, which had already existed for se- 
veral centuries under the protection of the Greek empire, was be- 
ginning to emancipate herself entirely from all foreign shackles. 
In the year 697, the Venetians had modified their constitution by 
placing a single head with the title of doge, or duke, over the 
tribunes of the different confederate islands who composed the 
government. Pepin, son of Charlemagne, had refused to recognise 
the independence of the Venetians^ but their vigorous resistance 
to his attacks, in the year 809, had established their right of pay- 
ing no obedience to the head of the Western empire. This event 
had been followed, at no great distance of time, by the foundation 
of that city on the island of Rialto, which was destined to become 
the capital of the republic and the queen of the Adriatic. 

Along the whole eastern frontier of the empire there were small 
Slavonic nations who acknowledged themselves tributary to Louis 
le Debonnaire. Sometimes their dukes assisted in person at the 
diets held by the emperor; sometimes they delegated ambassadors. 
But it not unfrequently happened, that their own fickleness, or the 
insolence of the commanders on the frontiers, occasioned a petty 
warfare between them and the empire. Dukes of Pannonia, Dal- 
matia, Liburnia, the Abodrites, the Soratians, the Witzi, the Bo- 
hemians, the Moravians, are mentioned, sometimes amongst the 
feudatory subjects of the empire, sometimes amongst its enemies^ 
without affording us a possibility of discovering the interests and 
the alliances of these small barbarian tribes, who often changed 
both their name and place of abode. On the same frontier, in 
Hungary and Transylvania, the Huns and Avars, after having re- 
sisted the arms of Charlemagne, were become enfeebled by civil 
dissensions: many of them had embraced Christianity; many had 
abandoned the country; in short, they were no longer formidable. 
But, farther to the east, the Bulgarians had raised themselves upon 
their ruins. This pagan nation, continually at war with the Greeks, 
inspired univg.'sal dread from the ferocity of their manners and 



854 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [oHAP. XVIII. 

disposition. They did not turn their arms against the empire of 
the Franks; but several of the smaller Slavonic tribes forsook the 
alliance of the Franks and sought that of the Bulgarians, and paid 
tribute to the one or to the other, as they thought they could en- 
sure themselves protection against that neighbour, whom, at the 
time, they had the most reason to dread. In 824, the deputies of 
Omortag, king of the Bulgarians, arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle, to 
demand some settlement of frontiers between themselves and the 
Franks. The death of Omortag just at the same period interrupt- 
ed the negotiations. 

Peace still subsisted between the empire of the East and that of 
the West, and the two emperors continued their intercourse by 
means of embassies: but the simultaneous decay of these two 
great powers gradually estranged them from each other. In the 
time of Charlemagne, their territories had touched upon each 
other throughout the whole line of an extensive frontier; now, 
they were already separated by several independent or hostile 
states. The island of Crete had been conquered towards the 
year 823, by a fleet composed of Ommiad Musulmans from the 
shores of Andalusia. In 827, Sicily was invaded by a body of 
Musulmans from Africa, who had been invited to the enterprise 
by a young Greek who was in love with a nun. Dalmatia and Ser- 
bia declared themselves independent about the year 826; the lat- 
ter threw off the yoke of Byzantium, while the Croatians, their 
neighbours, withdrew their allegiance from the court of Aix-la- 
Chapelle. 

The revolutions of the Greek empire had been precipitated by 
the bitterness of the religious hatred existing between the image- 
worshippers and the iconoclasts. The ambitious Irene, who had 
re-established the worship of images, and had found in the monks 
such powerful allies, fell a victim to a conspiracy of the contrary 
faction, a short time after the negotiations set on foot between 
herself and Charlemagne, with the view of uniting the two em- 
pires by the marriage of their sovereigns. She was surprised 
and arrested, on the 31st of October, 802, by the orders of Ni- 
cephorus, her grand treasurer, who was crowned emperor in her 
place. She was banished to Lesbos, and left exposed to such 
abject poverty, that this once powerful and haughty empress was 
reduced to gain a scanty subsistence by spinning. 

The history of Greece at this period has been transmitted to 
us solely by writers who w^ere ardently devoted to the mainte- 



CHAP. XVIII.] GREEK EMPIRE. 355 

nance of the worship of images against the iconoclasts ; and as 
Nicephorus once more abolished that worship, his reign, from 802 
to 811, and that of his son Stauracius, are represented as dis- 
gracefulj whilst Michael Rhangabe, who succeeded the latter, 
(a. d. 811 — 813,) is painted as an excellent and truly orthodox 
prince. Nicephorus, it is true, was unsuccessful in the war 
which he undertook against the Bulgarians^ but as he himself 
was killed in the great battle he fought against them, and his son 
was mortally wounded, we must at least do justice to their per- 
sonal courage; while, on the contrary, their successor gave nu- 
merous proofs of weakness and incapacity. Michael was un- 
seated by a new revolution, which once more placed the power 
in the hands of the iconoclasts, and raised Leo the Armenian to 
the empire. So slight was the alarm with which Michael Rhan- 
gabe inspired the new emperor, that he was permitted to retire 
to a convent, where he survived his deposition thirty-two years. 

The Greek emperors contemporary with Louis le Debonnaire, 
— Leo the Armenian, (a. d. 813 — 820|) Michael the Stammerer, 
A. D. 820— 829,-) and his son Theophilus, (a. d. 829—342,)—. 
persisted in their horror of image-worship; and they are all, in 
consequence, represented by clerical historians as tyrants. The 
coronation of Michael the Stammerer, and the death of Theo- 
philus, are equally calculated to strike the imagination. The 
former, after having been the friend of Leo the Armenian, had 
repeatedly conspired against him: he had been condemned to be 
burnt alive, and was imprisoned in a dungeon of the palace. 
The eve of the day fixed for his execution, his friends, habited 
as priests and penitants, with swords hidden under their long 
robes, entered the chapel where the emperor Leo was performing 
matins, on Christmas-day, and attacked him at the moment he 
was chanting the first psalm. Leo, who had been a soldier, and 
who had ascended with glory, step after step, in the career of 
arms, having no other means of defence, seized a massive cross 
from the altar, and endeavoured to repulse the assailants, at the 
same time imploring their mercy. " It is the hour of vengeance, 
and not of mercy," was the answer of the conspirators; and he 
fell beneath their swords. 

His prisoner, Michael, was instantly brought from his dun- 
geon, and placed upon the throne, where he received the homage 
of the nobles of the empire, of the clergy, and the people, be- 



356 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVIII. 

fore a smith could be found to take off the fetters which still 
bound his feet. 

His son Theophilus was surnamed bj the Greeks the Unfortu- 
nate, from his constant want of success in every war he con- 
ducted in person, spite of his brilliant valour and great activity. 
He seems to have united the merits and defects of those eastern 
despots, whose justice, vigilance, and bravery, historians cele- 
brate 5 forgetting that the vigour, the promptitude, and arbitrary 
caprice of their decisions destroy in the people themselves all 
notions of law and justice; that their vigilance takes the form of 
vexatious espionnage, inspiring their subjects with continual dis- 
trust: that their courage, not being enlightened and guided by a 
regular study of the art of war, serves only to expose their sol- 
diers to danger. 

The Greek nation already held but the second rank in the 
East. The opinions of their neighbours the Musulmans had in- 
fluenced their morals and their habits^ and the emperors of 
Greece were dazzled by the glory of the khaliphs. Theophilus, 
the rival of Motassem, the son of Harun al Rashid, seems to 
have taken the commander of the faithful as his model. The 
death of Theophilus is even more stamped with the oriental cha- 
racter than his life. He had given his sister in marriage to a brave 
captain of the ancient race of the Persian kings, Theophobus, 
who, with a great number of his countrymen, had renounced a 
country bowed down under the Moslem yoke: he had embraced 
Christianity, and served in the armies of the empire. He had 
given his brother-in-law signal proofs of his fidelity, at a period 
when a numerous faction called upon himself to ascend the 
throne; and the emperor, attacked, in the flower of youth, by a 
mortal disease, which, it was evident, would rapidly tear him 
from his wife and his infant son, and would thus leave them un- 
protected, might have been expected to rejoice at the prospect of 
confiding them to the hands of so faithful a guardian as Theo- 
phobus. Such, however, would not be the opinion of a Turk of 
the present day in similar circumstances; neither was it that of 
Theophilus; for despotism assimilates men of every race and 
every religion. With feelings of sombre jealousy he reflected 
that his brother-in-law would survive him. On his death-bed, 
he gave orders that the head of Theophobus should be brought 
to him. He grasped it with his expiring hands, and exclaimed, 
" I recognise thee, my brother, and yet already thou hast ceased 



CHAP. XVIII.] LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE. S57 

to be Theophobus; soon, too soon, I shall cease to be Theophi- 
lus." He then fell back upon his bed, and expired. 

During the first sixteen years of the reign of Louis le Debon- 
naire, frequent embassies between the two empires kept up the 
remembrance of the ancient unity of the Roman world; and the 
question of the worship of images was debated afresh in the 
West, on the invitation of the emperor of the East. But, dating 
from the year 830, we find the whole attention of the Franks 
concentrated upon themselves; their relations with foreign powers 
were dissolved; and the history of the times presents us with no - 
thing but internal dissensions and the quarrels of the Carlovin- 
gian family. 

At the assembly of the states held at Aix-la-Chapelle in the 
spring of the year 830, Louis had called together the Frankic 
army to carry war into Britany. This war, in which the sol- 
diers had no hopes of getting plunder, and in which they knew 
they must undergo all the inconveniences and dangers of roads 
fatal to their horses, an unwholesome climate, and great suffer- 
ing, was regarded with extreme repugnance by the freemen of 
whom the army was to be composed. This discontent; the ig- 
norance of the freemen, who, in most instances, suffered without 
understanding the cause of their suffering; the absence of all 
public opinion; the w^ant of any communication between the 
provinces which could serve to enlighten them; were so many 
instruments seized upon by the sons of Louis to incite to revolt; 
the armies marching under them to the general rendezvous. 
Pepin, king of Aquitaine, and Louis, king of Bavaria, united 
their troops at Verberie. Their father, perceiving that he was 
abandoned by the greater part of his soldiers, resolved on put- 
ting himself at the head of those who continued faithful, and 
marching to Compiegne, three miles distant, where he entered 
into negotiations with his sons. A promise was immediately ex- 
acted from him, that he would dismiss from his court Bernhard, 
duke of Septimania, the reputed lover of his wife. The empress 
Judith was conducted to the camp, and confessions corroborative 
of public suspicions were extorted from her, together with a pro- 
mise that she would take the veil at the convent of St. Rade- 
gunde at Poictiers. Judith was so acted upon, either by terror 
or by repentance, that she entreated tlie emperor to abdicate the 
crown, and to retire to a convent; but he refused to bind himself 
by monastic vows, and demanded time for deliberation. In the 

46 



S58 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XVIII. 

mean time, the aged monarch found himself a prisoner in the 
hands of his three sons: for Lothaire had arrived from Italy; he 
had approved every thing done by his two brothers, and was re- 
cognised as the head of the malecontent party. It was the wish 
of the clergy of his party that the emperor should be formally 
deposed by a national council. But such severity did not ap- 
pear necessary to his sons, who were not resolved on depriving 
him of all authority. The feeble Louis had always been led by 
those about him: henceforward their rivals were removed from 
his person, and he remained entirely in their hands; they ima- 
gined he would submit implicitly to their wishes, while his name, 
and the respect it still inspired, would be of use, without im- 
posing any restraint upon them. 

But jealousy of power aroused the mental energy of the old 
emperor. He readily gave himself up to a favourite, but that fa- 
vourite must be of his own choice; and, to regain possession of 
power, he displayed a degree of address and perseverance which 
he had never before exhibited. The house of Charlemagne had 
reached its elevation by the arms of the people of Germany. 
Charles had lived almost entirely amongst them; and had chosen 
them exclusively to fill his army and to discharge the most emi- 
nent functions both of church and state. The inhabitants of Gaul 
felt humbled and oppressed: under the reign of Charlemagne they 
had not dared to make any attempt to free themselves; they were 
imboldened under that of Louis (of whom, however, they had 
fewer reasons to complain,) and they took advantage of the dis- 
sensions amongst the royal family to shake off this Germanic as- 
cendency: they united their own cause to that of the malecontent 
princes, and seconded every attack made upon the imperial au- 
thority. 

The empire of the West was thus divided between two nations 
whom their language rendered it impossible to blend, and in whom 
difference of origin and customs engendered mutual antipathy. 
On the one side were seen all the inhabitants of either bank of 
the Rhine, who till that time, had been almost exclusively desig- 
nated by the name of Franks,* but to whom, at this period, 
the more generic name of Germans was again beginning to be ap- 
plied: on the other were found all who made use of the Roman 

* It should be remarked, tliat Franken was not the name of a tribe or gens, 
like Sachsen Bajoaren (Bayern,) &c. but of an association, originally formed 
for the deliverance of Germany from the Roman yoke,— Transl. 



CHAP. XVIII.] LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE. 359 

tongue, or the different patois which were already growing out of 
corrupted Latin^ the Gauls, the Aquitanians, the Italians. The 
Gauls, however, were not willing to renounce their share of the 
glory which for three centuries had hung around the conquerors of 
their country; they therefore assumed the name of Franks, and 
gave to their country that of France. As, however, from the period 
in question, this name denotes a new language (the same spoken by 
the French of the present day, as contradistinguished from the 
Teutonic language of the ancient Franks,) we shall henceforth 
give to the Gauls, among whom it was in use, the modern name of 
French. 

The aversion of the French, and the attachment of the Ger- 
mans, to the son of Charlemagne, furnishes an explanation of the 
long civil wars which troubled the end of the reign of Louis le 
Debonnaire, and the whole of that of his sons. Louis having 
succeeded in obtaining that the next assembly of the states should 
be convoked at Nimeguen, found himself surrounded there by a 
far larger number of Germans than of French : Lothaire, frightened 
at the desertion of his partisans, repaired to his father's tent; and 
whilst his followers, alarmed by the length of the conference, 
imagined he had met with some violence, and were preparing at 
the peril of their lives to rescue him by main force, he had effect- 
ed his reconciliation after the manner of princes: — he sacrificed 
the men who had exposed themselves for his sake; he accused them 
as the instigators of all his rebellious acts; and consented to the 
condemnation of all his friends to death. The good-natured Louis, 
however, abstained from carrying into execution any one of the 
sentences pronounced upon them; his sole desire seemed to be to 
recall his wife from the convent whither she had retired, and to 
prevail on the church to authorize him in taking her back. 

The misfortunes of the aged emperor had had the effect of ex- 
citing the enthusiasm of the people, and especially of his own 
countrymen, bound to him by the tie of a common language. 
His humility might be extolled by the monks; his clemency and 
juster claims on universal approbation: but no sooner did he re- 
sume the reins of the government, than his incapacity increased 
the general disorder, and his very virtues became a source of 
evil to the people. Accordingly, a year had hardly elapsed after 
power had been restored to him, when discontent burst forth on 
all sides. Always under the dominion and the guidance of the 
person most constantly about him, and especially of the em~ 



560 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XVIIJ* 

press Judith, the most futile motives influenced his most impor- 
tant determinations: he altered the order of the succession to 
the crown, rather than support for an instant the ill-humour of 
bis wife; he appointed military governors over the largest pro- 
vinces as the price of a caress, and changed the boundaries of 
his kingdom in return for the slightest favour. The instability 
of every established division; the apparent contempt for all set- 
tled arrangements; the violation of every oath intended as a 
guarantee, kept alive the agitation of the people. The sons of 
Louis, seeing that their interests were incessantly sacrificed to 
that of their youngest brother, repeatedly endeavoured at resist- 
ance, either openly or by intrigue; at last they met in arms in 
Alsace, in the month of June, 833, with the design of compel- 
ling their father to adhere to his own ordinances and his own di- 
visions of territory. 

Louis, on his side, advanced as far as Worms to resist them. 
He was surrounded by numerous prelates, nobles, and soldiers, 
who inspired him with full confidence; but who, though united 
under his standard by their sense of allegiance, probably lament- 
ed that they were obliged to turn their arms against their fellow- 
countrymen, merely to abet the ambition of a woman, or to com- 
ply with the dotage of a king no longer in a state to know his 
own will. During the night of the 24th of June, 833, each bat- 
talion successively passed over to the camp of the young princes: 
all the great nobles, all the prelates, and soon after all the cour- 
tiers, one after the other, abandoned the old monarch, whose im- 
becility daily became more evident. The spot where the empe- 
ror experienced this universal defection, previously known under 
the name of the Rothfeld, (the red field,) from that time bore the 
name of Lugenfeld^ (the field of a lie.) Louis, always eager to 
submit, dismissed the small number of faithful adherents still at- 
tached to him, went in person with his wife and his youngest 
son to the camp of his eldest sons, and resigned himself to cap- 
tivity. 

The universal defection which took place on the Lugenfeld 
may be considered as a solemn judgment pronounced by the na- 
tion on the premature dotage of Louis le Debonnaire. But the 
resentment of the people is never long-lived; that of the French 
people, least of all. No sooner was the court which had caused 
such universal mischief broken up, than the people, led rather 
by imagination than by reason, felt no other sentiment towards 



CHAP. XVIII.] INTERNAL REVOLUTIONS. 361 

their old monarch than that of pity for his humiliationj and the 
sons of Louis were no sooner victorious than they lost all their 
popularity. They thought they should render their father inca- 
pable of ever reascending the throne by a solemn act of degra- 
dation, namely, by depriving him of his knightly belt. The bi- 
shops, on their side, drew up a general confession, consisting of 
eight articles, in which Louis was made to accuse himself of nu- 
merous crimes, and to declare himself unworthy of the throne. 
The facile monarch did not hesitate to recite it in the church of 
Soissons, (November 11, 833.) He afterwards demanded that a 
public penance should be imposed on him, that he might furnish 
an example to that people to whom he had been a scandal. With 
his own hands he unbuckled his knight's belt, and placed it on 
the altar^ then, taking oif his accustomed dress, he received 
from the bishops the dress of a penitent. 

The bishops imagined that, after this degrading ceremony, 
Louis would become an object of contempt in the eyes of all. 
But the aged emperor had resigned himself to disgrace from a 
feeling of monk -like humility,— a sentiment in which the people 
of that day could well sympathize: far from losing any of his 
partisans by his contrite submission, he only inspired greater 
pity. The two younger sons of Louis separated from their 
eldest brother, and complained of the rigour with which their 
father had been treated^ and Lothaire, abandoned by all his par- 
tisans successively, was soon reduced to yield to the conditions 
imposed on him by public opinion. 

It is worthy of remark, that these revolutions, so rapidly and 
frequently occurring, which alternately deprived the emperor or 
his sons of the sovereign power, and restored it to them, had 
been hitherto accomplished without any bloodshed. It is true 
that the princes were backed by armies, but these had appeared 
to give the law much more by the weight of their opinions than 
by their arms. The officers and the troops passed judgment on 
the conduct and the sentiments of their kings. Accordingly, 
they were constantly negotiating with the opposite camp, and 
passing without scruple from the one to the other. When a de- 
cision was taken, it seemed to be the consequence of the de- 
clared and evident unanimity of the nation, to which kings felt 
obliged to submit. At the beginning of the year 834, Lothaire 
was recognised sole emperor by the whole army, and by all the 
provinces: he was master of the persons of his adversai-ies, Louis, 



S62 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XVIII. 

Judith, and Charles: in less than two months he abandoned all 
these advantages, without even drawing his sword to defend 
them. In the early days of March, he set at liberty his father, 
who was at the convent of St. Denisj he took no measures to 
keep the empress and her son in his power; he fled from Paris, 
and retired to Vienne upon the Rhone, where he endeavoured to 
assemble his partisans. Dating from this time, and during the 
last six years of the reign of Louis le Debonnaire, it is true the 
quarrels of his family were more often disgraced by bloodshed; 
still they were not marked by any great battle, nor by any ex- 
ploit demanding our attention. No civil wars present a more 
degrading spectacle, or one more disgraceful to the hupcian race, 
than those of the Carlovingian family: they call forth neither 
great virtues, great talents, nor great passions: they do not even 
display great crimes; but every class in the state, every portion 
of society, seems struck with a mortal languor. 

The death of Pepin, king of Aquitaine, which took place at 
Poictiers on the 13th of December, 838, changed the politics of 
Louis, or rather those of the ambitious Judith, who absolutely 
directed his councils. Pepin, the second of the emperor's sons, 
left two sons and two daughters. According to a division of 
the kingdom, sanctioned by the monarch and the nation, the 
crown of Aquitaine passed of right to the elder son: but J^ouis 
immediately took the determination of despoiling his grandson 
in favour of his son by Judith: and he consecrated the remnant 
of a life now drawing to a close, to the conduct of this unnatu- 
ral war, whilst the Aquitanians generously embraced the defence 
of the son of the king whom he had given them. On the other 
hand, though Lothaire, the emperor's eldest son, was the one of 
the three who had caused him the most vexation, Judith, judging 
that his protection would be the most useful to Charles the Bald, 
sought to effect her reconciliation with him at any price. She, 
accordingly, entered into an agreement with him, that Bavaria 
alone should be given up to the emperor's third son, who, like 
his father, was named Louis, and that the whole remaining em- 
pire should be divided between Lothaire and Charles. Such was 
the price of the reconciliation between the two emperors, pro- 
claimed at the diet of Worms, on the 30th of May, 839. 

While these dissensions were passing within, the increasing 
weakness and universal anarchy which they occasioned, left the 
empire a prey to the attacks of all its neighbours. Those on the 



CHAP. XVIII.] DEATH OF LOUIS. 363 

Slavonic frontier, now neighbours only to Louis of Bavaria, were 
already forgotten by the French. The record of no single event 
has come down to us, of all that passed throughout that long 
eastern frontier which Louis le Debonnaire had defended in the 
beginning of his reign. But it was by sea that the barbarians 
now gained entrance into France^ and, on this element, none 
dreamed of repelling them. Every year the Northmen pushed 
their ravages farther on every shore of the ocean. The Medi- 
terranean coasts were also beginning to suffer from the devas- 
tating incursions of the Saracens: a body of the latter, in 838, 
surprised and pillaged Marseilles, the most opulent of the cities 
of the south; while others of their countrymen established them- 
selves in southern Italy. 

At last Louis le Debonnaire, who had grown old both in mind 
and body long before the appointed period of man's decline, was 
attacked, towards the beginning of June, in the year 840, with 
water on the chest. By his own command, he was transported 
to the palace of Ingelheim, built on an island in the Rhine, above 
Maintz: there he still displayed that monk-like piety, sometimes 
touching, but always weak, which had conciliated the love of the 
people, notwithstanding the ignominy of his reign. His natural 
brother, Drogo, bishop of Metz, attended him in his last mo- 
ments, and prevailed on him to extend his forgiveness to every 
one, even to Louis of Bavaria, his third son, at that time in arms 
against him, and whom he accused of bringing his gray hairs with 
sorrow to the grave. When he was on the point of expiring, he 
was twice heard to exclaim in the German tongue, " AusI aus!" 
— "Out! out!" as if exhorting his soul to burst forth from its 
terrestrial abode. But it was the belief of his attendants that 
these words were addressed to the devil, whom he beheld at his 
window. " For, with his company," says the chronicle of St. 
Denis, *' he had naught to do, either dead or alive Then he 
turned his face to the right side; raised his eyes toward heaven, 
and in this manner he passed from this mortal life to the joys of 
paradise, June 28, 840." 



( 364 ) 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Division of the Empire into distinct States. — Rapid Degeneracy of the Carlo- 
vingian Race. — Successors to Louis le Debonnaire. — Charles the Bald. — 
Government of the French Monarchy. — French and German Languages. 
— Battle of Fontenai. — Defeat of Lothaire and Pepin. — Partition of the 
Empire. — Peace. — Incursions of the Northmen on the Coasts of France. — 
Their Bravery and Love of Plunder. — Oscar. — Pillage of Rouen. — Pusil- 
lanimity of the People. — Raegner Lodbrog. — Flight of Charles the Bald 
and his Court. — Sack of Paris. — Hastings. — Defenceless State of France. 
— Attacks of the Saracens and Moors on Rome and Naples. — Sack of Mar- 
seilles by Greek Pirates.— Burning of Bordeaux by the Normans. — Sack 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, Treves, and Cologne. — State of the Population of 
France. — Devastation of Normandy. — Second Sack of Paris. — Cowardice 
and Decay of the French Nobility. — Increasing Wealth and Power of the 
Church.— Conduct of the Clergy. — Trial by Ordeal. — Superior Power of 
the Bishops in France, of the Dukes in Italy, of the People in Germany. 
— Division of the Kingdom of France among the three Sons of Lothaire. 
— His Abdication and Death. — Division of the States of Charles the Bald. 
— Marriage of Lothaire the Younger and Theutberge. — Violent Opposi- 
tion of the Clergy to their Divorce. — Appeal to Pope Nicholas I. — Lo- 
thaire's Journey to Rome. — His Reception by Adrian II. — Adrian's Denun- 
ciations. — Death of Lothaire and his Companions, a. d. 840 — 869. 

So far as we have been able to penetrate the obscurity of the 
ages which have just passed in review before us, we have beheld 
all the nations of the West subjected to common revolutions, 
hurried along in a like career; we have seen them combining, first 
under the Romans, then under the Franks, and under the Arabs, 
towards the formation of a universal monarchy. It was sufficient, 
with a view to render intelligible the general course of the nations 
of Europe, to fix our attention on a single empire, and to follow 
out the relations either of its parts with the whole, or of its ene- 
mies with the one dominant and united state. 

In the middle of the ninth- century the scene changes. The 
partition of the West among the sons of Louis le Debonnaire 
gave birth to independent states; to nations of strange language, 
laws, manners, and opinions, which we see keep their ground in 
Europe. The period on which we are now about to enter, cala- 
mitous in many points of view, shameful and degrading to sub- 
jects and to kings, was yet, after long anarchy, productive of the 
most important and beneficial results; — the birth of popular rights 
and institutions. This we are about to witness; and it is the final 
act of the grand drama which it was our design to exhibit to our 



CHAP. XIX.] CARLOVINGIAN RACE. 365 

readers. But no small number of years were required for the 
completion of this act: long efforts, pertinacious struggles, were 
needed to change all the opinions of men; to turn the course of 
their affections; to detach them from the body of which they had 
always learned to consider themselves as forming a part, and to 
persuade them that they formed a whole of themselves. 

Long after the power of Charlemagne and his descendants had 
ceased, the recollection, or the idea, of the empire still dwelt in 
the minds and the memories of the people of the West. Long 
after independent sovereigns, a difference of language, an opposi- 
tion of interests, had detached, the Franks, the Germans, the Ita- 
lians, from each other, and broken again into many fragments 
their newly formed monarchies, the three nations continued to 
regard each other as fellow-countrymen; all their sovereigns con- 
tinued to take the title of Frank princes, and to think them- 
selves qualified candidates for all the crowns of the West indiffe- 
rently. The revolution which separated the members of the em- 
pire began in the year 840, at the death of Louis le Debonnaire; 
in 987 it was scarcely accomplished, when Charles of Lorraine, 
brother of Louis V., the last of the Carlovingian line, was deprived 
of the throne in the last of the kingdoms which had remained 
subject to his family. 

Among the causes which precipitated the fall of this mighty 
body, we must, doubtless, place in the foremost rank, the inca- 
pacity of its rulers. The degeneracy of the Carlovingian race is 
one of the most striking examples of that rapid deterioration of 
the species which menaces royal families, and which seems an 
almost inevitable consequence of the seductions with which ab- 
solute power surrounds them. When these families attain to the 
possession of absolute power in a semi-barbarous age; when the 
fathers have not endeavoured to correct in their children, by the 
most careful education, the disadvantages of their situation; when 
the culture of the mind, of letters, and of morals, do not give a 
new direction to the activity of those who seem to have nothing- 
left to wish or to aspire after, the successive occupants of the 
throne can have no other thought than that of enjoying the sen- 
sual pleasures placed within their reach by the success of the 
founders of their dynasty: they are corrupted by all the vices 
which power and riches can minister to; corrupted by the ab- 
sence of all obstacle and all restraint, which, of itself, is often 
sufficient to turn the strongest head; corrupted, often, by the 

47 



366 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIX. 

false direction given to their superficial studies, or by the false 
aspect under which religion is presented to them, as a means of 
expiating the vices she fails to prevent. 

The Carlovingian family, which was divided into so many 
branches, which occupied for nearly a century all the thrones of 
Europe, and which exercised so decisive an influence over the 
calamities of that quarter of the globe, had, at its rise, produced 
a series of great men^ Pepin of Heristal, Charles Martel, Pepin 
the Short, Charlemagne: never had so many able and distin- 
guished leaders been seen to succeed each other in a right line. 
It must, however, be remarked, that the earlier among them 
were little more tiian party chieftains, or commanders of armies; 
and that even the last-mentioned was not born in a royal station. 
On the contrary, dating from the revolution which placed them 
on the throne, all the sons and grandsons of these heroic ances- 
tors; all those princes, lapped from their birth in the purple of 
the Western empire, were, without a single exception, despised 
and despicable. In the second generation, even, we do not find 
one deserving of interest, or capable of exciting affection; and 
the annihilation of the strength of their immense empire, its 
rapid fall, — without precedent or parallel in the world, — was the 
work of their vices and their imbecility. 

Louis le Debonnaire had, indeed, paved the way towards this 
enfeeblement of the Carlovingian race. With extensive acquire- 
ments, goodness of heart, and amiable qualities, which were mis- 
taken for virtues, he ruined, in a few years, the magnificent in- 
heritance he had from his heroic predecessors. Seduced by the 
intrigues of his second wife, and by his foolish partiality for his 
youngest son, he overthrew the laws of the empire, and those 
which he had himself enacted; confounded all rights, and ren- 
dered the duties of the people unintelligible by contradictory 
obligations; taught his sons and his subjects to violate the treaties 
and the oaths he exacted from them, and which he himself vio- 
lated; and thus rendered necessary a civil war after his death, to 
regulate, by force of arms, what he had thrown into confusion by 
his infirmness and vacillation. 

At the moment of his death, Louis le Debonnaire had not one 
of his children near him. His eldest son, Lothaire, governed 
Italy with the title of emperor; the second, Pepin, was dead, and 
his son, Pepin II., was acknowledged king by a part of Aqui- 
taine; the third, Louis, called from that time the Germanic, 



CHAP. XIX.] CHARLES THE BALD. S67 

reigned in Bavaria; the fourth, Charles, was at Bourges, endea- 
vouring to induce the Aquitanians to recognise him as their so- 
vereign. The claims of these four princes, the eldest of whom 
wanted to remain head of the monarchy, as his father and grand- 
father had been, not one of whom was contented with the portion 
allotted to him, could only be adjusted by a higher tribunal — 
either the voice of the whole nation, or the decision of the sword, 
which in public and in private quarrels was thought to pronounce 
the judgment of Heaven. The four princes prepared to submit 
their claims to both: but their respective rights were so confused; 
their interests were so ill understood, even by themselves; the 
alliances they might have been able to contract were in a state of 
so little forwardness, that they were not ready either to plead or 
to fight. A national diet had been convoked at Worms, even be- 
fore their father's death: they did not attend it. They assembled 
their armies, though their armies were, as yet, little disposed to 
take the field. 

The youngest son of Louis, Charles the Bald, was only seven- 
teen years old. He had done nothing, nor certainly did he ever 
do any thing, which could justly endear him to the people. The 
right which he claimed to strip Pepin II., to invade the possessions 
of his elder brothers, or to render himself independent of the head 
of his family, could be founded only on those feminine intrigues 
to which he owed his elevation, or on the fondness of a father 
who had sunk into dotage. These same intrigues had for ten 
years past involved the nation in scandalous intestine wars, the 
very memory of which was, one would think, sufficient to alien- 
ate the affections of the people from the young man who had been 
made the cause of so many miseries. Spite of all these disad- 
vantages, Charles's cause was maintained with constancy, with 
pertinacity, and he triumphed. The consequences of his success 
may perhaps contribute to enlighten us as to its causes. With 
the reign of Charles the Bald commenced the real French mo- 
narchy; or the independence of that nation which created the lan- 
guage still spoken in France: it was the epoch of the separation 
of that country from Germany and Italy. The war of Charles 
against his two brothers was maintained by the Gaulish people; 
or rather, by the nobles of Roman extraction, who wished to 
shake off the German yoke. The insignificant quarrel of the 
kings was taken up with ardour, because it was identified with the 
quarrel of the races; and all the hostile prejudices which always 



S68 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. fcHAP. XIX, 

attach to differences of language and of manners, gave obstinacy 
and bitterness to the combatants. 

The first conquests of the Franks had scattered the two tongues, 
the Teutonic and the Latin, throughout the whole extent of Gaul. 
The barbarian and the Roman had each his dialect: the one had 
been reserved for the army, the other for the church and the go- 
vernment. All the nobles and great men spoke both languages 
indifferently; but in the south, the Latin, which daily became 
more and more corrupt, and which began to be designated by the 
name Roman or Romanz, was the mother tongue: German was the 
taught language. The reverse of this was the case in the north. 
The revolution which had transferred the whole power to the 
dukes of Austrasia, the ancestors of Charlemagne, and their ar- 
mies, had diffused the German language over the south, and had 
rendered it absolutely necessary for those connected with the go- 
vernment to acquire it; but at the same time the seat of the court 
had been transferred to the Germanic provinces — to Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle. Worms, Cologne; and Paris, formerly the capital of the 
kingdom, had become more and more attached to the Roman lan- 
guage, in proportion as it was more and more deserted by the 
Franks. At the time of the death of Louis le Debonnaire, the 
frontier line between the region of the two languages was pretty 
much what it is at present. It was the boundary which, in his 
last partition treaty, that emperor had sought to establish be- 
tween the government of Lothaire and that of Charles. For the 
first time since the fall of the Roman empire, all who spoke the 
Roman dialect of France were united into one single body; for 
the first time they could express their sentiments of dislike to 
those barbarians who affected to be their masters, and whom their 
language alone sufficed to prove of another race. The young 
man whom fortune gave them as a leader, showed, ere long, how 
little he deserved their attachment or their sacrifices: but if they 
could have been induced to abandon him, they would certainly 
never abandon themselves. 

A whole year was spent by the four princes in assembling their 
armies, in strengthening the attachment of their partisans and in 
binding themselves by mutual alliances. Thus Lothaire promised 
his support to the youthful Pepin, while Louis the Germanic be- 
came the ally of the young Charles. After many skirmishes be- 
tween the several parties, the four princes at length marched in 
the direction of the centre of France, about the close of the spring 



CHAP. XIX.] BATTLE OF FONTENAI. S69 

of the year 841. Louis and Charles then sent a message to Lo- 
thaire and Pepin to this effect: that they must choose whether 
they would accept their last propositions, or await them in the 
field ^ for that, on the morrow, the 25th of June, at the second 
hour of the day, 'they would come to demand the decision of Al- 
mighty God, to which those princes had forced them to appeal 
against their will. 

In this spirit was fought the battle of Fontenai, the most bloody 
and furious conflict which had taken place in the civil wars of 
France for many years. A contemporary Italian writer affirms, 
that the loss of Lothaire and Pepin amounted to forty thousand 
men: this calculation is most likely exaggerated^ it is a more pro- 
bable supposition that forty thousand men was the amount of the 
loss on both sides; for the conquerors, Louis and Charles, suf- 
fered little less than the conquered. Even this number is doubt- 
less very large, but it betrays a great ignorance either of the mo- 
ral causes which govern great states, or of the habitual effect of 
war on population, to attribute, as has often been done, to this 
carnage alone, the ruin of the Frankic empire. 

The terrible battle of Fontenai did not give a sufficiently de- 
cided advantage to one party over the other, to occasion an im- 
mediate occupation of new provinces, or a change in the respec- 
tive forces of the two leagues. Each people, and each prince, 
while bewailing their respective losses, began to think seriously 
of the means of preventing the recurrence of a similar calamity, 
the rather, as the empire was at the same time devastated by 
other enemies. The people, the dukes, the prelates, demanded 
peace with the utmost urgency; the princes felt the necessity of 
sincerely and earnestly endeavouring to obtain it. Lothaire was 
the first who sent to propose to his brothers a treaty of peace, of 
which he consented to admit, as the basis, the independence of 
their kingdoms of his imperial crown. Italy, Bavaria, and Aqui- 
taine were to be considered as the hereditary portions, respective- 
ly, of Lothaire, of Louis, and of Charles; for Pepin II. was uncon- 
ditionally abandoned by his uncle, who had promised to protect 
him. After severing these three kingdoms from the mass, the 
remainder was to be divided into three equal parts, of which Lo- 
thaire, as elder, was to have his choice. Although these primary 
conditions were agreed on, and the three brothers had held an 
amicable conference, in the middle of June, 842, in a little island 
in the Saone above Ma9on, a long time was still required before 



370 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIX. 

their commissaries could come to an understanding. They soon 
began to discover that they had not sufficiently exact information 
as to the extent or the comparative riches of the several provinces 
of the empire, to make an equal division of them. They had no 
geographical maps, no statistical tables to refer to, and were com- 
pelled to see every thing with their own eyes. They then asked 
for assistants, till at length the total number of commissaries 
amounted to three hundred. 

They allotted out among themselves the whole surface of the 
empire, and they engaged to traverse it in every direction, and 
to make a complete report upon it before the August of the 
following year. On this report, the final division of the empire 
of Charlemagne was decided on in the month of August, 843. 
All that part of Gaul situated to the west of the Meuse, the Saone, 
and the Rhone, with the part of Spain lying between the Pyren- 
nees and the Ebro, were abandoned to Charles the Bald. This 
constituted the new kingdom of France. 

The whole of Germany, to the Rhine, was allotted to Louis 
the Germanic. Lothaire united to Italy the whole eastern por- 
tion of France, from the sea of Provence to the mouths of the 
Rhine and the Scheldt. This long and narrow strip, which cut 
off all communication between Louis and Charles, and which in- 
cluded all the countries speaking German in the interior of Gaul, 
was called Lotliaringia, or the portion of Lothaire^ whence the 
German Lothringen, and the French Lorraine. 

The motive which had mainly determined the Carlovingian 
princes to put an end to the war, and to lend an ear to the uni- 
versal complaints of their subjects, was the invasion of the coasts 
of France and Germany by adventurers from the North, who 
were called Northmen, (Nordmcinner,) or Danes; and who re- 
turned each succeeding year in greater numbers, and renewed 
their ravages on the defenceless countries. It was not from the 
small kingdom of Denmark alone that these formidable swarms 
issued forth: the whole of Scandinavia, all the shores of the Bal- 
tic sea, all the regions lying along the rivers which empty them- 
selves into the sea, furnished recruits to these bands of sea-rob- 
bers. It was a new direction which the migration of the north- 
ern hordes had taken: instead of advancing across the continent, 
they poured down upon the coasts. They fancied they acquired 
a double glory — as they incurred a double danger — in braving 
the tempests of the north in their frail barks, before they en- 



CHAP. XIX.] INCURSION OF THE NORTHMEN. 371 

countered the enemies whom they went in search of. Without 
any other pretext for war than the love of plunder; without any 
other offence, on the part of those they attacked, than their 
riches, they still imagined that they were in quest of honour as 
well as of booty; and if they lost thousands of men annually by 
storms at sea and combats on shore, their population increased 
with a rapidity commensurate with the drain upon it, and the 
numbers of the Norse invaders seemed to multiply with their 
perils and disasters. In the year 841, Oscar, duke of the North- 
men or Danes, ascended the Seine as far as Rouen, took and 
pillaged that great city, to which he set fire on the 14th of May, 
and continued to lay waste and plunder the banks of the Seine 
during a fortnight. Not an individual appeared to resist him. 
The inhabitants of the country were confounded in one common 
state of degradation and servitude with the cattle, which aided 
them in their labours; those of the towns were vexed, oppressed, 
and unprotected: all were disarmed; all had lost the requisite 
determination, as well as physical strength, to defend their lives 
as well as the slender remnant of property which the nobles had 
left them. The monks, who had already got the greater part of 
the soil into their hands, and who had mainly contributed to the 
complete decline of the military spirit, thought of nothing but 
how to hinder the relics, which they regarded as the treasures of 
their convent, from falling into the hands of the pagan invaders; 
and as, in the finest provinces of France, there was not a single 
spot within thirty leagues of the coast, in which they could think 
themselves in safety, they bore them in procession farther into 
the country. 

Every one of the following years was marked by some expedi- 
tion equally disastrous to France, and by the pillage of some 
great city. Nantes, Bordeaux, and Saintes, fell successively 
into the hands of the Normans. The ancient walls of the cities 
appear to have been totally abandoned; nor, indeed, could they 
have afforded any protection to citizens so debased and disheart- 
ened; who, instead of attempting to defend themselves, flocked, 
together with their priests, into the churches, where they suffered 
themselves to be butchered without resistance. In 845, Rsegner, 
duke of the Northmen, entered the mouth of the Seine with a 
hundred barks, and ascended the river with matchless audacity, 
laying waste both banks in his passage, though Charles, with his 
army, was then encamped on the right bank. 



572 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. C<^HAP. XIX. 

Paris, which had been the capital of the Merovingian kings, 
had lost that prerogative under the Carlovingian dynasty. But 
that great city was still more important than any of those which 
had fallen to the lot of Charles the Bald; was adorned with a 
greater number of churches and of convents than any other; 
and, in the midst of the universal misery, she boasted the im- 
mense treasures collected in her churches. When Charles 
learned the approach of the Northmen, who had encountered no 
obstacle or resistance, he left the citizens exposed to all the hor- 
rors which threatened them: while he and his nobles established 
themselves in the convent of St. Denis, with a view to defend 
that sanctuary; and the servants of the church of St. Gene- 
vieve hastened to carry off the relics and the treasures of the 
saint to a remote farm which belonged to them. 

Rsegner, continuing his passage up the Seine, arrived before 
Paris on Holy Saturday, the 28th of March, 845. The city was 
deserted: all the inhabitants had fled. The Northmen expe- 
rienced no resistance; yet they massacred or hanged, in sight of 
the king's army and as a mark of their contempt for him, all the 
unhappy fugitives who fell into their hands. 

At the same time, without hastening, or without appearing to 
apprehend the slightest danger from their delay, they loaded their 
vessels with all the wealth they found remaining in Paris, — even 
to the timber of the houses or the churches which they thought 
applicable to the purposes of ship-building; while the grandson 
of Charlemagne, having neither courage to fight himself, nor 
finding any in the nobles by whom he was surrounded, bargained 
with the Northmen for the price of their departure, and, at 
length, promised them seven thousand pounds' weight of silver. 

A new leader of the Norse warriors, Hastings, who for thirty 
years led them on to victory, and who, above any other, contri- 
buted to reduce the fertile coasts of France and of England to a 
depopulated waste, began, about this time, to acquire celebrity. 
It is asserted that he was born among the most barbarous of the 
peasants of the diocess of Troyes; but that, finding it impossi- 
ble to endure the state of oppression to which he saw himself 
and those around him condemned, he had fled to the pagans of 
the North, embraced their religion, adopted their manners and 
their language, and distinguished himself by so much ability and 
daring, that he rapidly rose to consideration among them, and at 
length became their leader. Their cupidity was actively second- 



CHAP, XIX.] AfTACKS ON IRANCE. O/O 

ed by his thirst of vengeance, which he wreaked with peculiar 
fury on the nobles and the priests. Thus it was, that the exe- 
crable administration of the empire had brought about the al- 
most universal extinction of resolution and energy in the people 5 
and if, by any accident, one escaped the poisonous influence of 
slavery, he turned against society those qualities, which, under 
good government, would have made him its most valuable de- 
fender, and now rendered him its most terrible scourge. 

The Carlovingian princes, far from occupying themselves with 
the means of defending their subjects, recalled from the mouths 
of rivers the coast-guards stationed there by Charlemagne, to 
employ them against each other; for, in the midst of the general 
devastation, their civil wars continued; and Charles, the most 
exposed of them all to the. incursions of the Normans, seemed to 
have no other object in view but to rob his nephew Pepin II. of 
Aquitaine. 

Mean while barbarians of every clime and region seemed to 
have learned that the Franks might be attacked with impunity 
at every point. The Saracens of Africa began to ravage the 
south, in the same manner as the Normans had devastated the 
west. In the month of April, 846, a mixed body of Arabs and 
Moors ascended the Tiber, took possession of the church of St. 
Peter of the Vatican, which was at that time without the walls 
of Rome, carried oiF the altar placed over the tomb of the apos- 
tle, together with all the ornaments and treasures of the church, 
and then turned their course towards Naples. At the same time 
Louis the Germanic, who had tried to repel an invasion of the 
Slavonians, had been defeated, less from the bravery of his ene- 
mies than from the dissensions of his own troops. 

The progress of cowardice and debasement among the sons of 
Charlemagne's soldiers,— among the French, in whom courage 
seems generated . by the very air they breathe, — is one of the 
most remarkable phenomena, but also one of the best attested, of 
the age we are contemplating: it proves to what a degree slavery 
can annihilate every virtue, and what a nation may become in 
which one caste arrogates to itself the exclusive privilege of 
bearing arms. Of all the cities built on the shores of the Medi- 
terranean, Marseilles was the most opulent, the most populous, 
and the most important as a commercial town. Marseilles was 
taken, in 848, by the refuse of Europe, — a handful of Greek pi- 
rates, who landed without resistance, and, after sacking the city, 

48 



374 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XIX. 

retired with impunity. At the same time, the Northmen took 
possession of Bordeaux, which they gave up to the flames. 

The cities of Friesland and Flanders in Lothaire's domains 
were no better defended. The walls of St. Omer alone inspired 
some confidence, and the relics and conventual wealth of the 
whole province were, consequently, brought thither for security. 
Experience had too clearly shown that these sacred treasures did 
not defend themselves from the insults or the rapacity of the pa- 
gans,* yet the popular faith in them continued unshaken. 

The princes and the g-overnors of provinces not only opposed 
no resistance to their enemies, but frequently invited them, and 
employed their arms to intimidate domestic foes, or to avenge 
pretended offences. Nomenoe, duke of the Bretons, is accused 
of having repeatedly introduced the Normans into the region ly- 
ing between the Loire and the Seine. Pepin II. of Aquitaine, 
and William, son of Bernhard, duke of Septimania, were not 
more scrupulous in calling in the Saracens: they introduced them 
not only along the whole marches of Spain, and in Septimania 
or Languedoc, but even into Provence, In an age which is 
called religious, the crime, in a Christian, of delivering up his 
country to pagans or to Musulmans, seemed of a deeper dye 
than that of betraying it to an ordinary enemy: and yet, never 
did the princes or powerful men hesitate to commit it, if it pro- 
mised to aiFord a means of gratifying their ambition or their ven- 
geance. Scarcely was there an individual among the distin- 
guished persons of this age who did not enter into some dis- 
graceful treaty with the enemies of his faith. 

In the early part of the autumn of 8^, a fleet of two hundred 
and fifty large Danish boats appeared off the coast of France,, 
and, dividing themselves into parties at the mouths of the rivers, 
ascended at the same time the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Seine. 
One of the divisions reached Aix-la-Chapelle, and no attempt 
was made to defend the ancient capital of Charlemagne, — the 
capital of Lothaire: the imperial palace was burned by the north- 
ern pirates, and the richest convents were given over to pillage. 
Nor was this all: this band of hardy adventurers, daring at once 
the power of France and that of Germany, pursued their route 
to Treves and Cologne, massacred almost all the inhabitants of 
these two celebrated cities, and set fire to their buildings. 

Another division, after leaving their boats at Rouen, had 
advanced by land as far as Beauvais, and had spread deso- 



CHAP. XIX.] DEGRADATION OF THE CITIES. ST5 

lation throughout the adjacent country. The Danes passed 
two hundred and eighty-seven days in the country lying on the 
Seine 5 and when they quitted it, with their ships laden with the 
spoil of France, it was not to return home, but to transfer the 
scene of their depredations to Bordeaux. Yet, we do not hear 
what either Lothaire or Charles the Bald were doing during this 
period^ nor why those nobles who had reserved to themselves 
the exclusive right of bearing arms, could not draw a sword in 
defence of their country. Those ambitious chiefs, who had de- 
stroyed at once the power of the king and of the people, seemed 
now to rival each other only in abject pusillanimity. 

Europe still contained a great number of veteran warriors, who 
had beheld Charlemagne master of an empire which extended 
from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of the Baltic, and 
from the Krapack mountains to the ocean. No unforeseen cala- 
mity had befallen that vast empire; no powerful nation, no confe- 
deration of various tribes, had taken arms against it: it had fallen 
by the vices of its government alone. Never were the French 
summoned by the public authority to take arms, except for the 
purpose of slaughtering each other in the name and on the behalf 
of royalty. The nations united under the sceptre of Charlemagne 
were regarded by his descendants as a numerous herd, which they 
shared among them in the most capricious manner, without the 
least regard to the interests of the people, or the means of de- 
fending the states. The race of freemen, already exhausted by 
Charlemagne's wars, had become extinct under the feeble reigns 
of Louis le Debonnaire and of his son. The inhabitants of the 
towns, despised, ruined, disarmed, were no longer possessed of 
any means of defence. Gaining an humble subsistence by a few 
of the mechanical trades, or living on the charity of the monks, 
they were not in a condition to inspire the nobles with any jea- 
lousy: nevertheless, these overbearing lords were indignant that 
men of such low birth and menial occupations should not be 
slaves; and, far from protecting them, they delighted in their suf- 
ferings and misfortunes. Hence the walls of the cities were suf- 
fered to go to decay; their civic guard or militia had ceased to 
assemble; the treasury of their municipal courts was empty; their 
magistrates commanded no respect. The largest cities were con- 
sidered only like villages, as the dependency of the neighbouring 
castle; and when a handful of pirates appeared before their gates, 
and threatened them with pillage, slavery, and death, the citi- 



376 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIX. 

zens knew of no other resource than to fly to the foot of the 
altar, or to the protection of the church, where the brutality of 
the conquerors soon overtook them. The rural population, re- 
duced to the most abject state of slavery, and become almost in- 
diiFerent to life, were hunted like wild beasts by the Normans 
and the Saracens, and perished by thousands in the woods. They 
had no heart to till or sow the fields they had so little hope of 
reapingj and every year brought with it a fresh pestilence or fa- 
mine. 

"The cities of Beauvais and Meaux are taken," wrote Emen- 
tarius, a contemporary historian; *' the castle of Melun is devas- 
tated; Chartres is taken; Evreux is sacked; Bayeux and all the 
cities of that district are invaded; not a hamlet, not a village, not 
a convent, remains untouched; every one takes to flight; for rare- 
ly, indeed, do we find any one who dares to say, stay, resist, fight 
for your country, for your children, for the honour of your race." 
The Normans took advantage of this universal cowardice; and 
on the 28th of December, 856, they sailed up the Seine as high as 
Paris, which they entered and began to pillage. They first set 
fire to the churches of St. Peter and St. Genevieve; they then 
pillaged and burned all the others, with the exception of three, 
which were ransomed by a large sum of money. 

"Who would not be afflicted," cries Almoin, a contemporary 
monk of St. Germain des Pres, " to see the army put to flight be- 
fore the battle has begun? to see it terrified before the first arrow 
has fiown? to see it overthrown before the shock of bucklers? But 
the Normans had perceived, during their sojourn at Rouen, that 
the lords of the country (we cannot say it without a profound grief 
of heart) were cowardly and fearful in battle." 

The same author, in another place, introduces duke Raegner 
Lodbrog rendering an account to Horic, king of Denmark, of the 
taking of Paris. " And he related to him," says he, *' how good 
and how fertile, and how filled with all good things he found the 
country; and how base and trembling the people who inhabited it 
were in the moment of the fight. He added, that in this country 
the dead had more courage than the living; and that he had met 
with no other resistance than that which had been opposed to him 
by an old man called Germain, long since dead, whose house he 
had entered." Such is the antithesis by which Almoin introduces 
the recital of a miracle of St. Germain, who drove the Norse pi- 
rate out of his temple. 



CHAP. XIX.] POWER OF THE CHURCH IN FRANCE. 377 

The immense growth of priestly power and influence, during 
the reign of the Carlovingian sovereigns, was not one of the least 
among the causes of the universal decay of the Western empire, 
and the extinction of its military spirit. The importance of the 
priesthood had increased, not only by the increase of their num- 
bers and their wealth, but by the progressive weakness of the 
other orders of the state. 

For four centuries the most distinguished families of the 
Franks, — those who began to be considered superior to the others 
in blood as well as in riches, and who were called the nobility, — 
had become rapidly extinct 5 sometimes from the fury of foreign 
and domestic wars; sometimes from unbridled debauchery, (the 
sole enjoyment of the rich in a barbarous state of society;) or, 
lastly, from devotion, which, suddenly succeeding to the grossest 
licentiousness, consigned those to the walls of a convent who 
ought to have perpetuated their race. 

The chasms caused by the extinction of these noble families 
were not filled by a succession of nev/ families raised from the in- 
ferior ranks; there was scarcely any communication between the 
different classes of society, nor was any gradual approximation 
possible. When an opulent family became extinct, a part of its 
property went by inheritance to some other family already pos- 
sessed of large landed property; so that the estates of the re- 
maining families became more and more extensive. The rest, 
often the largest part, according to the degree of piety of the 
testator, went to the church; and this church, which was inces- 
santly acquiring, and had no power of alienating, saw the boun- 
daries of the lands over which she claimed a right, enlarging 
with every succeeding generation, nay, with every succeeding 
year. It is impossible to read the early French chronicles with- 
out being struck with the progressive diminution of the number 
of personages they introduce on the stage. The farther we ad- 
vance, the more are we surprised to see all the nobles, — we 
might almost say all the citizens, — of a great kingdom, of whom 
we have obtained any knowledge, dwindle away to four or five 
counts and as many abbots. 

As we continue our researches, we soon remark that the abbots 
gradually hold a larger place in history than the counts. The ec- 
clesiastical benefices were become too rich not to excite the ambi- 
tion and cupidity of the most powerful lords. As the same fa- 
milies furnished recruits both to the army and the church, it 



378 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIX. 

sometimes happened that the abbots vied with the counts in fero- 
city, brutality, and debauchery. It was, however, more com- 
mon to see the most thoughtful, sedate, and crafty youth of a fa- 
mily destined to the ecclesiastical profession; so that, with an 
ambition equal to that of the soldiers, the priests had a greater 
chance of success. When they met their brothers in the coun- 
cil, they would, of course, be superior to them in policy and in 
cunning. They had nearly succeeded in excluding them from 
the assemblies of the field of May, which they had converted 
into councils: they shared with them the command of the armies^ 
for the abbots and prelates, disregarding the sacred canons, had 
arrogated to themselves the right of wielding the sword. They, 
however, generally felt that they were ill qualified for the pro- 
fession of arms I and this diffidence of their military talents na- 
turally led them to give a constant preference to negotiations 
over forces to neglect all that would have conduced to foster a 
warlike spirit among their vassals^ and rather to enervate the 
population in every district which fell into their hands. 

In the domains of the church, — and those domains perhaps 
then embraced more than half the territory of the Western em- 
pire, — all the influences of habit, of example, of education, were 
exerted to extinguish the national courage. It was to the pro- 
tection of relics and sanctuaries, never to that of their own right 
arm, that the faithful were exhorted to recur in all seasons of 
danger. Trial by battle gave place to ordeals quite as absurd 
and quite as dangerous, — those of fire and of boiling water, for 
instance, — but which did not tend to excite a warlike spirit 
among the vassals of the church. Military games and exercises 
were even forbidden, as profane shows little suitable for Chris- 
tians. 

Among the laity, talents found no reward, ambition had no ob- 
ject,* all individuality of character was obliterated, and a moral 
lethargy seemed to have taken possession of the nobility, attenu- 
ated as it was in number and in influence. But the clergy had ga- 
thered the inheritance of all the secular passions, as well as of 
all the means of gratifying them: they united sacred learning 
to policy, and secured to those who distinguished themselves 
by their talents, their knowledge, or their character, an in- 
fluence, a power, a glory, far superior to any that could have 
been acquired by the same individuals in ages the most favour- 
able to letters. 



CHAP. XIX.] POWER OF THE CHURCH IN FRANCE. 379 

It must be observed, however, that the three portions of Charle- 
magne's empire had not experienced a fate precisely similar. 
France, under Charles the Bald, had fallen into the power of the 
bishops: the nobility was feeble; the army spiritless, the rural 
population almost annihilated. In Italy, under Lothaire and his 
son, Louis II., the prelates had not succeeded in gaining posses- 
sion of so large a share of influence, or so large an extent of ter- 
ritory: but powerful dukes had established vast and wealthy go- 
vernments, which they had rendered almost hereditary in their 
families; and though the country did not prosper under their ad- 
ministration, they had maintained a free and martial population 
in their castles and strong places, and some opulence in the 
cities. Lastly, Germany, under Louis the Germanic, had pre- 
served more of a military spirit than either of the other two di- 
visions; a population proportionally more numerous, and more 
freemen in proportion to the serfs. Thus France was become a 
theocracy, Italy a confederation of princes, and Germany an 
armed democracy. 

It appears to us, that our readers would find little interest and 
less profit in a catalogue of the family wars which troubled this 
period. Charles the Bald, who never defended his states from 
aggression, was incessantly occupied in endeavours to wrest 
Aquitaine from his nephew, Pepin II.; nor did he keep the peace 
better with his brothers Lothaire and Louis the Germanic, nor 
with their sons: but these wretched struggles, though sufficient 
to rum provinces, did not deserve to be considered as national 
wars. They had no political results, save that of adding to the 
general stock of misery; and made n?o change in the distribution 
of empires. 

In the beginning of the year 855, the emperor Lothaire, then 
about sixty years of age, was attacked by a slow fever, from 
which he was sensible he should never recover. He divided his 
states among his three sons, then of mature age. To Louis IL 
he gave Italy, with the title of emperor; to Lothaire II. the pro- 
vinces situated between the Meuse and the Rhine, which had 
long been known under the name of Austrasia, but which were 
now called Lothringen, or Lorraine, from the names of their so- 
vereigns. Charles, the youngest son, had the provinces lying 
between the Rhine and the Alps, which were then called the go- 
vernment of Provence. After making this partition, the em- 
peror Lothaire assumed the monkish habit, in the abbey of Prom, 



S80 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAF. XIX. 

in the Ardennes, where he died on the 28th of September, 855. 
It appears that Charles the Bald had, on his side, given the titles 
of kings of Neustria and of Aquitaine to his two sons^ and 
Louis the Germanic, those of kings of Bavaria, Saxony, and 
Swabia, to his three sons. So that the Carlovingian family, at 
this time, numbered a large body of crowned heads. 

The part played by the clergy in the wars between these dif- 
ferent monarchs, the arrogance of their reprimands, and the hu- 
mility and submissiyeness of the kings, would be worthy of par- 
ticular attention^ and more minute details would prove the just- 
ness of our remarks on the general state of Europe^ but, pressed 
by time, and restricted w^ithin the proportions we are bound to 
observe between the various parts of our narrative, we shall con- 
tent ourselves with offering, in the most succinct manner in our 
power, one example of his domination,' — the history of the quarrels 
of the young Lothaire, king of Lorraine, with the court of Rome, 
on the subject of his marriages. It was a great step gained by the 
popes when they succeeded in establishing their jurisdiction over 
monarchs in matters relating to their dissolute pleasures. 

In the year 856, Lothaire had married Theutberge, daughter 
of count Boson of Burgundy, but the next year he put her away, 
accusing her of incest with her brother, abbot of the convents of 
St. Maurice and Luxen. As the queen had purged herself from 
this allegation by the ordeal of boiling water, out of which her 
champion had come unharmed, Lothaire had been compelled to 
take her back in 858. Nevertheless, not only had he another 
attachment, but he pretended that he was under solemn engage- 
ments to another woman. He affirmed that, before his union 
with Theutberge, he had been betrothed to Walrade, sister of 
the archbishop of Cologne, and mother of the archbishop of 
Treves; that he had quitted her, in consequence of constraint 
alone, (during a civil war,) and that he had never ceased to look 
upon her as his lawful wife. 

Theutberge had been taken back by her husband; but, per- 
haps in order to escape the humiliations she had to experience in 
a palace in which she had been reinstated by force, perhaps as a 
homage to truth, she made a voluntary confession, in the month 
of January, 860, of the incest of which she had been accused. 
The bishops assembled in council at Aix-la-Chapelle, before 
whom she made this confession, pronounced sentence of divorce, 
and condemned her to be confined in a convent. Shortly after, 



CHAP. XIX.] MARRIAGE OF LOTHAIRE. 381 

she found means to escape, and the whole priesthood of Christen- 
dom now took cognizance of this quarrel. We have no means 
of determining whether the zeal with which they opposed the 
divorce of Theutberge arose from an esprit de corps, which ren- 
dered them anxious to save the reputation of the abbot of St. 
Maurice; or merely from the desire of the clergy to preserve an 
absolute jurisdiction over marriage, and to keep all sovereigns in 
a state of dependence upon them. The Merovingian kings had 
had several wives at a time, (not to mention their numerous mis- 
tresses,) and had repudiated them according to their own ca- 
prices: Charlemagne had followed their example. Louis I. had 
adopted a morality more in conformity with the laws of religion 
and the injunctions of the clergy. It appeared to them that the 
attempt of Lothaire to shake off their yoke, ought to be punished 
in a manner so exemplary as to strike terror into all others. 
Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, took upon himself to prove that, 
even though Theutberge should have been guilty of incest before 
her marriage, it was not a sufficient reason for pronouncing sen- 
tence of divorce. 

We cannot follow out the history of the different councils, 
which alternately dissolved the marriage of Theutberge, and 
forced Lothaire to take her again. We shall pass over the details 
of this scandalous affair, which for fifteen years occupied the at- 
tention of all Christendom. We need scarcely say, that the 
forced union of Lothaire and Theutberge increased the hatred and 
resentment of each towards the other. Lothaire ceased not to 
solicit permission to repair to Rome, to explain and justify his 
conduct; whilst Nicholas I., who then occupied the papal throne, 
haughtily refused his request. Theutberge, on her side, peti- 
tioned to be allowed to separate herself from a husband whom she 
rendered miserable, and with whom she could enjoy no happiness. 
The reply of pope Nicholas was as follows: — *' We are equally 
astonished at the expressions contained in thy letters, and in the 
discourses of thy deputies, and at remarking so complete a change 
in thy style and in thy demands. We do not forget that in for- 
mer times thou laidst before us nothing of the like kind. Every 
body attests to us that thou art borne down by an unceasing af- 
fliction, by an intolerable oppression, by a hateful violence; 
whilst thou, on the contrary, affirmest that no one constrains thee 
when thou demandest to be stripped of the royal dignity. As 
to the testimony thou offerest in favour of Walrade, declaring 

49 



382 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XIX. 

that she had been the lawful wife of Lothaire, it is of no avail 
that thou labourest to establish this point. No one needs thy 
testimony concerning it. It is for us to know what is just; it is 
for us to decide what is equitable; and even wert thou thyself 
reprobate or dead, never would we permit Lothaire to take his 
mistress Walrade to wife." 

After the death of Nicholas I., however, the moment arrived in 
which the Holy See permitted Lothaire to repair to Rome, in 
order to justify himself. He thought he had merited special fa- 
vour in consequence of his having led an army against the Sara- 
cens, who laid waste the south of Italy, and had menaced even 
the papal dominions, then governed by Adrian II. But the 
heads of the church judged it more important to prove that, even 
in this world, the highest dignities did not shelter sinners from 
her judgments. 

About the end of July, 869, Lothaire made his entry into 
Rome. Already he might have perceived that the vengeance of 
the church was suspended over his head. But we shall confine 
ourselves to a report of the words of archbishop Hincmar, the au- 
thor of the annals of St. Bertin, and shall leave- the reader to 
draw the conclusions which the facts may appear to him to 
warrant. 

*' When pope Adrian returned to Rome, Lothaire, who followed 
him, airived at the church of St. Peter; but not a single priest 
presented himself to receive him, and he was alone with his own 
followers when he advanced to the tomb of the apostle. He af- 
terwards entered some rooms, close to that church, which he was 
to inhabit, but they had not even been swept for his reception. 
He thought that on the following day, which was Sunday, mass 
would be performed before him; but this he could by no means 
obtain from the pope. Nevertheless he entered Rome the next 
day, and dined with the pope himself in the palace of the Lateran, 
where they gave each other presents." 

Adrian afterwards invited Lothaire and all his court to a so- 
lemn communion; but it was accompanied with circumstances, 
which were calculated to strike him with terror. " After the 
mass was concluded," says the contemporary author of the an- 
nals of Metz, " the sovereign pontiff, taking in his hands the 
body and the blood of the Lord, called the king to the table of 
Christ, and spoke to him thus:—* If thou knowest thyself to be 
innocent of the crime of adultery, for which thou wert excommu- 



CHAP. XIX.] DEATH OF LOTHAIRE. 383 

nicated by our sovereign lord Nicholas, and if thou art thoroughly 
determined in thy heart never again in thy life to hold criminal 
commerce with Walrade thy mistress, approach with confidence, 
and receive the sacrament of redemption, which shall be to thee 
the pledge of the remission of thy sins, and of thy eternal salva- 
tion. But if thou hast proposed in thy soul to yield again to the 
blandishments of thy mistress, beware of taking this sacrament, 
lest that which the Lord hath prepared as a remedy for his faith- 
ful servants, be converted into a chastisement for thee.' " 

Lothaire, confused and agitated by this address, received the 
communion from the hands of the pontiff, without any retraction 5 
after which Adrian, turning to the companions of the king, of- 
fered to each the communion in these words: — " * If thou hast 
not given thy consent to the sins of thy king Lothaire, and if thou 
hast not held intercourse with Walrade, nor with the others 
whom the Holy See hath excommunicated, may the body and the 
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be to thee eternal life!' Every 
one of them, feeling himself compromised, took the communion 
with a rash boldness. This was on Sunday, the 31st of July, of 
the year 869; and every one of them died by a judgment of hea- 
ven, before the first day of the next year. There were a very 
small number who avoided taking the communion, and who thus 
saved themselves from death." 

Lothaire, himself, on quitting Rome, was attacked with the 
disease with which the pontiff had threatened him as a chastise- 
ment. He, however, dragged himself as far as Piacenza, where 
he expired on the 8th of August. From the time he quitted the 
gates of Rome, all his followers, all who had received the holy 
elements from the hands of the pontiff, fell at his side; there 
were but very few who reached Piacenza with the king; the rest 
died on the way. Adrian acknowledged the judgment of God 
in this calamity, and announced it to the kings of the earth, as 
an awful lesson of submission to the church. 

This appeal to the judgment of God was then universally re- 
sorted to for the discovery of every sort of crime. When it was 
invoked, it was indifferent whether a poison or a wholesome be- 
verage was offered to the accused. For the innocent, the poison 
became innoxious: after an invocation like Adrian's, the bread 
of life would, to the guilty, be transmuted into poison. 



( 384 ) 



CHAPTER XX. 

Character of Charles the Bald. — His Reign. — Death of Pepin II. — Sons of 
Lothaire. — Wars among the Carloving"ian Princes. — Charles's Cruelty to 
his Sons. — Pope John VIII. — Weakness of Charles's Government. — In- 
vasions of the Saracens and Normans. — Norman Settlements in France. — 
Their Ravages. — Death of Charles the Bald. — Invasion of Italy by Karlo- 
man of Bavaria. — His Coronation. — His Death. — Charles the Fat crowned 
Emperor at Rome by Pope John VIII. — Louis of Saxony. — Charles the 
Fat. — His Character. — Conversion of Countships into Hereditary Offices. 
— Increased Power of the Aristocracy and the Church. — Louis the Stam- 
merer. — His Sons and Successors. — Boson, Count of Burgundy. — His Ele- 
vation. — Fate of Louis III. and his Brother Karloman. — Succession of 
Charles the Fat to the whole Western Empire. — Siege of Paris. — Depo- 
sition and Death of Charles. — Extinction of the legitimate Carlovingian 
Line. — Division of the Empire into many States. — General Degradation 
and Depopulation of France. — Incursions of the Northmen, Saracens, 
and Huns. — Rise of Feudal Institutions. — Consequent Increase of Popu- 
lation and Strength. 

We have beheld the establishment of a universal monarchy^ and, 
as far as it was possible within our narrow limits, we have marked 
what were the fatal consequences of that establishment to the po- 
pulation and to the character and courage of the nations incorpo- 
rated into so huge and ill compacted a mass. We have seen, af- 
ter the neglect and violation of national interests, the disgraceful 
quarrels of rapacious princes kindle wars in which patriotism 
could have no share. We have seen the deplorable feebleness of 
this immense empire, exposed without defence to the violence of 
every predatory horde. In the two years which conclude the 
ninth century we shall see it fall to pieces, and an infinite num- 
ber of new monarchies and small principalities arise out of its 
ruins5 at the same time we shall see the rapid extinction of the 
Carlovingian dynasty, every branch of which disappears, with the 
exception of one single offset, whose claims to the throne were 
long disowned and rejected. This last remaining heir of all the glo- 
ry of the founders of his line, and of all the infamy of its later 
monarchs, Charles the Simple, did, it is true, recover the crown 
of France after the lapse of some years; and the Carlovingian 
dynasty is said to have reigned a century over the French, after 
it had lost the thrones of Germany and of Italy. But this cen- 
tury of lingering struggles of the royal line was rather a long in- 
terregnum, during which the title of king was preserved by men 



CHAP. XX.] DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE. 385 

who were in fact no more than petty lords; while the nation, left 
to itself, began its work of self-reform, and new social bodies 
sprang out of the ruins of the mighty empire. France required 
a century more than its neigbours to reconstitute itself, because, 
of all the countries subject to the rule of Charlemagne, it was the 
one in which the power of the people had been the most complete- 
ly annihilated, and, consequently, the one in which the fewest ele- 
ments for the reconstruction of a new social fabric remained, after 
the dissolution of the old one. 

In the period we have gone through, the different parts of the 
empire seemed to have no feeling of their separate interests, no 
peculiar recollections, no distinct rights. No illustrious name, 
no remarkable family, nothing provincial, individual, or local, 
attracts our attention. If this universal sameness and apathy 
has rendered the history we have treated of less dramatic, it has, 
on the other hand, left our minds at full liberty to follow the 
main current of common disasters, the general convulsions of 
the empire, undistracted by the varied and animated incidents 
which complicate, while they adorn, the history of a more fortu- 
nate age. 

But this monotony is soon to cease. We are arrived at the 
point whence we begin to descry the rise of all modern gran- 
deur, — of all the powerful families, all the provincial sovereign- 
ties, all the privileges, which, for eight centuries, have been set 
in opposition no less to the claims of the crown, than to the 
rights of the people. The name of nobility may have heretofore 
occurred in history; but a real nobility, such as it has existed 
under the monarchies of modern times, such as it has maintained 
itself in the character of an order in the state, can trace its ori- 
gin no higher than to this era of the total disruption of the hi- 
therto existing forms of society. 

In like manner, we have seen the names of fief and henejiciumy 
and indications of some feudal obligations; but the feudal sys- 
tem, strictly speaking, did not arise till after this period of anar- 
chy: it was the principle of a new order of things, which was 
substituted to a state of confusion and of suffering a hundred 
times worse than those which this system introduced or tole- 
rated. 

Of the thirty-two years which elapsed after the death of Lo- 
thaire the younger, to the end of the century, nine (a. d. 869-=- 
877,) were filled by the disasters which raised Charles the Bald 



386 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XX, 

to the disgraceful possession of the imperial throne^ eleven, (a. 
D. 877 — 888,) by the rapid mortality which carried off all the 
heads of the Carlovingian house, and the extinction of all the 
legitimate branches^ twelve, (889 — 900,) by the civil wars which 
gave birth to the independent monarchies of Italy^ Germany, 
France, Burgundy, and Provence. We should despair of being 
able to throw any light or any interest over the whole of this 
period, in which the characters become dim and colourless in 
proportion to the increase in the number of names. We must, 
however, take a summary view of it; for, however dense the 
cloud which obscures the circumstances of this revolution, the 
revolution itself was not the less important. 

Fortune seemed to delight in elevating Charles the Bald, only 
to render more insupportable the humiliations to which she ex- 
posed him; she heaped crowns upon the head from which she 
tore laurels. Incapable either of governing or of defending his 
kingdom; suffering his vassals to strip him of his provinces, and 
a handful of pirates to devastate the whole line of his coasts, his 
only chance of satisfying his ambition was from the calamities 
of his own kindred: and this kind of good fortune was not de- 
nied him. His brother Pepin had left two sons; Pepin II. king 
of Aquitaine, and Charles: the whole reign of Charles the Bald 
was one continued scene of aggressions upon them. Two seve- 
ral times he succeeded in taking them prisoners: the first time 
he only confined them in convents; but the second, Pepin having 
been betrayed into his power by Rainulf, count of Poictiers, the 
meeting of the states of France held at Pistes, in the month of 
June, 864, condemned the king of Aquitaine to death as an apos- 
tate and traitor to his country. The sentence was, however, 
not executed, and Pepin II. died in the dungeon of a convent 
at Senlis. 

The emperor Lothaire, elder brother of Charles, had left 
three sons; the youngest of whom, Charles, king of Provence, 
died in 875; the second, Lothaire, king of Lorraine, died in 
869; lastly, the eldest, the emperor Louis II., who had inherit- 
ed Italy, died at Brescia, on the 12th of August, 875. Charles 
the Bald claimed to inherit the dominions of all three: he did 
not, however, obtain tranquil possession of them till after the 
death not only of his last surviving nephew, but after that of his 
own brother, Louis the Germanic, who died at Frankfort, on the 
28th of August, 876. So long as Louis lived, he contended 



CHAP. XX.] ^ CHARLES THE BALD. 387 

that he had an equal claim with Charles to the inheritance of his 
nephews: the frequent wars between them had given up the 
West to the incursions of barbarians, while those who ought to 
have been its defenders, were occupied in shedding each other's 
blood. Louis the Germanic left three sons, among whom he di- 
vided his states. He gave to Karloman, Bavaria; to Louis, 
Saxonj and Thuringia; and to Charles the Fat, Swabia. Charles 
the Bald at first flattered himself that he should strip his Ger- 
man nephews of their birthright, as he had stripped those of Ita- 
ly and Aquitaine: but he was beaten on the 7th of October, 876, 
by Louis of Saxony, at Andernach, and the following year put 
to flight in Italy by Karloman; so that, in this instance, his in- 
justice and rapacity brought him nothing but defeat and disaster. 

Even his own sons furnished occasion for the scandalous and 
atrocious exploits of a prince whose whole life was passed in acts 
of hostility and usurpation towards his nearest relations, while 
he shrank from encountering his own and his subjects' real and 
formidable foes, — the Normans and the Saracens. To his two 
elder sons, Louis and Charles, he had given the two crowns of 
Neustria and Aquitaine: both of them revolted, and were con- 
quered. The younger, Charles, died soon after of a wound re- 
ceived in a mock engagement: Louis the Stammerer survived 
his father, but with a ruined constitution and an enfeebled intel- 
lect. His two younger sons, Charles the Bald had shut up in 
convents, where they were condemned to do penance, in confor- 
mity with the opinions of the age, for the sins of their father. 
Karloman, however, impatient of restraint, and averse from a 
religious life, escaped from the cloister, and committed various 
acts of violence and disorder in Lorraine. He was at length 
retaken by his father, who caused his eyes to be put out, in 
order that he might support his captivity with more patience. 
(a. d. 874.) 

Such were the steps by which Charles the Bald ascended the 
imperial throne; his right to which was confirmed by pope John 
VIII. at the end of the year 875. *' We have elected him," 
wrote the pontiff to a synod assembled at Pavia, " we have ap- 
proved him with the consent of our brethren the bishops, of the 
other ministers of the holy Roman church, of the Roman senate 
and people. " . Thus did the pope claim the right of disposing of 
the imperial crown. He pretended to be the substitute for that 
whole nation of senators and warriors whose representative he 



388 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XX. 

called himself, and in whose name he invoked the names and 
the institutions of antiquity to sanction the domination of a mo- 
dern autocrat. Never had the greatest of the Frankic princes 
been eulogized or held up as a model to mankind, as was the 
feeble Charles the Bald. In fact, he, who during his whole life 
had trembled in abject subservience to the prelates of his own 
kingdom, must needs have appeared to John YIII. the best of 
sovereigns, inasmuch as he was the most submissive to the power 
of Rome. 

It was not long, however, before the very pope who had crowned 
him began to perceive that it was not enough to give to the empire 
a chief pious, timid, and obsequious; who would resist no usurpa- 
tion, who would check no abuse; that it stood in need of an en- 
ergetic ruler. Every one wanted to free himself from the nation- 
al power wielded by the monarch, though at the same time every 
one would have desired that this national power should exist for 
his own defence. It was soon proved that all the force which 
had been committed to the hands of Charles the Bald had fallen 
to utter destruction. The Saracens, whom Louis II. had resist- 
ed with an honourable persistency in the duchy of Benevento, 
since the king of the Franks had become emperor, menaced the 
capital of Christendom. " The heathens," says John in a letter 
to Charles the Bald, *' and wicked Christians, who are without 
the fear of God, overwhelm us v^ith such a multitude of evils, 
that nothing comparable to it can be found in the memory of man. 
The remnant of the people have retreated within the walls of the 
holy city; there they struggle against inexpressible poverty and 
want, while the whole region without the walls of Rome is laid 
waste, and reduced to a solitude. There remains to us but one 
evil to fear, and may God avert that from us, — the loss and the 
ruin of Rome itself." 

It was less with the view of carrying to the pope the succours 
he demanded, than for the sake of escaping from the sight of the 
ravages the Northmen were committing throughout the west of 
France, that Charles the Bald resolved to march a second time 
into Italy. The Northmen had established military colonies on 
the Seine, at a place called Le Bee d'Oisel; on the Somme, the 
Scheldt, the Loire, the Garonne, and, lastly, in the island of 
Camargue in the Rhone. Hither they retired with their vessels; 
here they deposited their booty; and hence they issued forth again 
to carry their ravages into the heart of the kingdom. 



CHAP. XX.] CHARLES THE FAT. 389 

" There was not a citj, not a village, not a hamlet," says the 
contemporary author of the account of the miracles of St. Bene- 
dict, " which had not in its turn experienced the frightful barba- 
rity of the pagans. They scoured these provinces at first on foot, 
for they were ignorant of the use of cavalry, but afterwards on 
horseback, like our own people. The stations of their vessels 
were so many storehouses for their plunder: near these ships, 
which were moored to the shore, they built huts, which at length 
seemed to form large villages, and in them they kept their troops 
of captives bound with chains." 

Charles, who had assembled a numerous army to accompany 
him into Italy, instead of attempting to expel these piratical in- 
vaders, contented himself with fixing the tribute which certain 
provinces should pay to the Normans of the Seine, others to the 
Normans of the Loire, to put a stop to their depredations. As 
to the Normans of the Garonne, they had reduced Aquitaine to 
so abject a state, that the pope transferred the archbishop Fro- 
thaire from the diocess of Bordeaux to that of Bourges, alleging 
that " the province of Bordeaux was made entirely desert by the 
pagans." 

But scarcely had Charles met the pope at Pavia, when the 
news of the approach of his nephew, Karloman, with an army 
levied in the provinces which now constitute Austria, struck him 
with terror. The German historians, indeed, accuse him of ha- 
bitual cowardice. He fled across Mont Cenis; and in that Alpine 
region was attacked with a violent fever, and died at a place 
called Brios, on the 6th of October, 877. 

Karloman, whose mere approach had sufficed to put to flight 
his imperial uncle, had yet no reason to congratulate himself on 
the issue of his Italian expedition. He was crowned at Pavia 
with the consent of the Lombard nobles, and from that time bore 
the title of king of Italy. But the plague broke out in his army, 
and he himself was attacked with a complaint which was attend- 
ed by extreme debility, followed by paralysis, and, finally, brought 
him to the grave, on the 22d of March, 880. 

He left only one son, a bastard, Arnulf, whom he had made the 
duke of Karnthen, or Carinthia: he had no legitimate children. 
Two brothers had divided with him the inheritance of their father 
Louis the Germanic: they watched the course of his long illness, 
and awaited his death to partition the kingdoms of Bavaria and 
Italy, over which Karloman had reigned: their attention was thus 

50 



590 FALL or TME ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XX* 

in some measure diverted from France, on which, however, they 
made some attempts. After the death of Karloman, Charles the 
Fat entered Italy at the head of an army. At Pavia he received 
the crown of Lombardy; and at Rome, about the end of the year 
880, he was invested with that of the empire by Pope John VIII. 
He united both to Svvabia, his original inheritance. The other bro- 
ther, Louis of Saxony, annexed Bavaria, which he acquired at 
Karloman's death, to the dukedom he had received from his father. 
Louis had only one legitimate son, who, while still a minor, fell 
from a windov/ of the palace of Regensburg, and was killed: he 
had also a natural son, named Hugo, who was slain about the same 
time in an engagement with the Normans near the forest of Carbo- 
naria. Having thus survived both his sons, Louis of Saxony, who 
had probably not yet attained his fiftieth year, fell ill, and died at 
Frankfurt, on the 20th of January, 882. 

"By the death of his cousins, to each of whose territories he be- 
came heir in succession, Charles the Fat — whose surname, Cras- 
sus, would be still better rendered by the Gross** — acquired an 
elevation to Vv'hich he had little claim on the score of merit. His 
enormously corpulent body was, in fact, the covering of a sluggish 
and imbecile mind. He appeared scarcely susceptible of any other 
desire, of any other thought, than those engendered by his im- 
moderate love of eatings and the higher the dignities which for- 
tune shov/ered upon him, the more glaring did his supineness and 
incapacity become to his people. Yet he was decorated with the 
imperial ciov^^n; he was sovereign of Italy and of the whole of 
Germany, before his time divided into three powerful kingdoms; 
and of that part of France called Lorraine. The rest, by that fa- 
tality which seemed attached to, the whole Carlovingian race, was 
soon destined to devolve to him. 

One only son had survived Charles the Bald: he was known 
by the name of Louis II., or the Stammerer. He was thirty years 
of age at the time of his father's death. His health was always pre- 
carious; his intellect was thought to be feeble, and his character 
more feeble still. Perhaps no energy, no ability, could have re- 
vived the empire from that state of languor and exhaustion in 
which Charles the Bald had left it. 

The Northmen were encamped in all the provinces, while the 

• The author's word Is Epais. We can hardly say Charles the Thick: 
though thicky doubtless, originally meant fat, as its German cognate dick still 
does. Charles was called by lus subjects Karl der dicke,—Transl. 



CHAP. XX.3 GROWTH OF FEUDALISM. S91 

prelates were the virtual sovereigns of the kingdom. The great- 
er part of the territory belonged to the church, and the councils 
and convocations of the bishops and powerful abbots were the only 
bodies possessed of any authority. In the very year in which 
Charles the Bald died, he signed the edict of Xiersi, (June 14, 
877,) by which he renounced the last fragment of his authority 
over the provinces. According to the capitularies of Charle- 
magne, the sovereign was to be represented in every province 
by a count, whom he nominated or dismissed at pleasure. These 
counts executed the royal commands; they were the commanders 
of the militia of freemen, and presided over the local courts and 
assemblies. But during the feeble government of the son and of 
the grandsons of Charlemagne, the monarch had scarcely ever 
dared to exercise his right of dismissing the counts. He had 
allowed them to confound the delegated power which they held 
from him, with the patrimonial government of their feudal domain 
and vassals. This weakness Charles carried still farther. By 
the edict of Xiersi he bound himself always to bestow on the son 
of a count, and as a lawful inheritance, the honour of the count- 
ship [Phonneur du compte,) which had been held by the father. 
By this edict the condition of the freeholders was rendered still 
more deplorable than before, since they had no longer any pro- 
tection or appeal against the tyranny or oppression of the great pro- 
prietors; while the latter, getting possession of almost all the coun- 
ties, France was soon divided into as many independent sove- 
reignties as there had been lord-lieutenancies held at the king's 
pleasure. 

None of the counts, however, any more than any of the seig- 
norial proprietors, had as yet presumed to claim the right of 
waging war. There had been an habitual want of obedience in 
the provinces; there had been occasional acts of disorder and 
violence, as was to be expected from the anarchical state of the 
kingdom; but no count or lord had as yet imagined that his rank 
or dignity authorized him to right himself with his sword: and 
some of them having tried to fortify their houses, as a means 
of securing themselves against the predatory attacks of the Nor- 
mans, and to surround them with a wall which gave them the ap- 
pearance of a castle, the edict of Pistes, of the month of June, 
864, ordered that every castle constructed without the express 
permission of the king should be razed to the ground before the 
1st of August then following. 



592 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. j^CHAP. XX. 

But hardly had the edict of Xiersi rendered the countships 
hereditary in the families of the nobles, when the crown ceased 
to be so in the royal family. A part of the counts and abbots of 
France refused to acknowledge Louis the Stammerer as successor 
to his father. They assembled in arms at Avenay in Champagne, 
and it was not till after considerable negotiation that they con- 
sented to meet him at Compiegne. They obliged him to confirm 
all the ancient laws and privileges of the church and the nobles; 
they exacted from him an amnesty in favour of all who had taken 
arms against him; they made him promise to maintain the disci- 
pline of the church; to style himself king hy the grace of God 
and the election of the people; and at length they consented, in 
the name of the bishops, abbots, nobles, and others, to his coro- 
nation, which took place on the 8th of December, 877. 

Louis the Stammerer did not reign two years under the pro- 
tection of this aristocracy and that of pope John VIII.> who had 
repaired to France, where his demeanour was far more that of a 
sovereign than the king's. In obedience to his father's com- 
mands, Louis had divorced his first wife, by whom he had two 
sons, Louis and Karloman; and had married a second wife, by 
whom he had a third son, Charles, afterwards surnamed the 
Simple. The king applied to the pope to sanction a divorce 
which had been compulsory, and thus to settle the question of 
the legitimacy of his children; but John VIII. chose to declare 
himself for the first wife and against the second; thus intro- 
ducing fresh confusion into the royal house. 

While things were in this posture, and after the pope had taken 
his departure, Louis the Stammerer died at Compiegne on the 
10th of April, 879. His two sons, the eldest of whom was not 
above seventeen, were again the sport of that ecclesiastical aris- 
tocracy which assumed the right of disposing of the crown; and, 
after stripping themselves still farther of their prerogatives, the 
princes were at length crowned, at the abbey of Ferrieres, near 
Paris, by Ansegise, archbishop of Sens. 

At the same time, however, a count of Burgundy, named Bo- 
son, brother of the second wife of Charles the Bald, and to whom 
that monarch had granted several governments in Lombardy and 
in Provence, intrigued with pope John VIII. to secure his own 
elevation to the throne. Spite of all the influence of that pon- 
tiff, who declared that he adopted him as a son. Boson did not 
succeed in Lombardy. He was more successfid in Provence, 



CHAP. XX.] ELECTION OF COUNT BOSON. 393 

where he distributed a great number of abbeys and benefices 
among the bishops and archbishops, having bound himself to 
guaranty them in such a manner that they might unite them to 
their pastoral duties. Having thus secured their suffrages, he 
convoked them for the month of October, 879, to a diet vt^hich he 
held at the castle of Mantaille, between Yienne and Valance. 
The six archbishops of Vienne, Lyons, Tarentaise, Aix, Aries, 
and Besan^on, met there, together w^ith seventeen bishops of the 
same provinces. Counts and other lay lords appear also to have 
attended this meeting; but such vras their state of subjection to 
the prelates, that they were not even called on to sign the acts 
of the diet, nor was any mention made of their names. 

The prelates of the diet or council of Mantaille adjudged the 
crown to count Boson, in order, as they said, that he might de- 
fend them against the attacks of Satan, and those of their visible 
and corporeal enemies. The strangest thing, however, is, that 
they assigned no limits to the kingdom they thus founded — that 
they gave it no name, either of a nation, or of a province. We 
should look in vain through the acts of the council for the name 
of the kingdom of Aries and Provence, which this state after- 
wards bore. We find, however, the speech addressed by Boson 
to the assembly. It may serve to give us some idea of the new 
theocracy to which France was subject. 

** It is the fervour of your charity," said he, " which, inspired 
by God, induces you to raise me to this office, in order that, with 
my feeble powers, I may combat in the service of my holy mo- 
ther — the church of the living God. But I know my condition: 
I am but a frail earthen vessel, entirely unworthy of so exalted 
a charge. And, therefore, I should not have hesitated to refuse it, 
were I not convinced that it is the will of God, who has given 
you but one heart and one soul for this determination. Seeing, 
then, that I am bound to obey priests inspired by Heaven, and 
my own friends and faithful servants, I do not resist — I should 
not dare to do so, or to rebel against your orders. And as you 
yourselves have given me the rule which I ought to follow in my 
future government, and have instructed me according to the holy 
precepts of the church, I undertake this great work with confi- 
dence." 

Louis III. and Karloman, the young sons of Louis the Stam- 
merer, tried in vain to defend Provence, which formed a consi- 
derable part of their inheritance, against the aggressions of Bo- 



394 TALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XX. 

sonj or to repel the Normans, who had poured down with fresh 
fury on the coasts of Neustria and Aquitaine. Their term of 
life was not sufficiently extended to allow them to carry through 
any of their enterprises, nor even to give France an opportunity 
of judging of their characters and talents. Louis III., riding 
one day, met the daughter of a Frankic nobleman, named Gor- 
mond, and was struck by her remarkable beauty. He called 
her: and the young girl, terrified at his discourse, and at the 
royal tone of familiarity he assumed, instead of answering him, 
fled to the shelter of her father's house. Louis determined to 
follow her; and, putting spurs to his horse, dashed forward, in- 
tending to ride through the door, which stood open. He had 
not, however, taken accurate measure of the height of the door- 
way. He received a blow on the head, which, at the same time, 
threw him against his saddle bow with such violence as to break 
his back. In this state, he ordered his attendants to carry him 
to the convent of St. Denis, where he hoped to be restored by 
the intercession of the saints. There, however, he died, on the 
5th of August, 882. 

Karloman, who now united his brother's inheritance to that 
portion of France which he already possessed, survived him only 
two years. As he was one day hunting the wild boar in the 
forest of Baisieu, he was accidentally wounded in the leg by the 
sword of one of his companions. The wound gangrened, and, 
in seven days, on the 6th of December, 884, he died, aged only 
eighteen. 

The two young princes died without issue. Their half bro- 
ther, Charles the Simple, not only was still an infant, but was 
regarded as a bastard, his mother's marriage having been de- 
clared null by the pope. Charles the Fat was the sole remaining 
heir of the blood of Charlemagne; and on the head of that mo- 
narch, brutified as he was by intemperance — to whom no one would 
have intrusted the care of the most insignificant of his private 
affairs — descended the united crowns of Bavaria, Swabia, Sax- 
ony, France (eastern and western,) Aquitaine, and Italy. The 
whole extent of the empire subject to the sway of Charlemagne 
was equally subject to him; and the Germanic part of it was far 
more populous, far more civilized, and perhaps, far more power- 
ful, than it had been under the great conqueror. It seemed as if the 
whole West was confided to hands so utterly weak and incompe- 
tent, for the sake of furnishing to mankind a striking proof of the 



CHAP. XX.] SIEGE OF PARIS. 395 

fatal effects of a universal monarchy, and of a corrupting form of 
government. The entire Western empire, united under one 
head, and with not an enemy save a handful of sea-robbers, could 
not defend itself against them on a single point. 

Paris was besieged by the Northmen for a whole year, (a. d. 
885, 886,) during which the whole Gallic nobility did not march 
a single soldier to its defence^ during which the monarch did not 
fight a single battle for the deliverance of the capital of one of 
his greatest kingdoms. The citizens, however, seeing no re- 
source but in their own despair, resisted with their unassisted 
strength, and they repulsed the Normans. 

At this same time Rome was menaced by the Saracens^ and 
the troops of Charles the Fat, instead of defending the capital of 
Christendom, pillaged Pavia, in which they were quartered. 
Every thing seemed to conspire to render the last of the Carlo- 
vingian emperors ridiculous and despicable, — even to the charges 
he brought against his wife at the diet at Kirkheim, and the re- 
velations she was obliged to make in her own defence. The pre- 
carious and declining health of Charles the Fat might have in- 
clined the people to await the near termination of hislife^ but the 
evident decay of his reason rendered it imperative on the nobi- 
lity and leading men to settle the future government of the king- 
dom. A diet of the Germanic states was convoked at the palace 
of Tribur, on the Rhine: they came to a resolution to offer the 
crown to Arnulf, duke of Kiirnthen, or Carinthia, a natural son 
of Rarloman, and nephew of the emperor. In three days, Charles 
the Fat was so completely deserted, that he had hardly sufficient 
servants about his person to render him the common offices of 
humanityj and Liutberg, bishop of Maintz, v/as obliged to suppli- 
cate Arnulf to secure the means of subsistence to his uncle. 
Some church property was accordingly set apart for that purpose, 
which Charles needed but for a few weeks: he died on the 12th 
of January, 888, at a castle called Indinga, in Swabia. 

If the subjects of Charles— those whom the imbecility of this 
great-grandson of Charlemagne had reduced to the most deplo- 
rable state, — avenged themselves by heaping contempt and scorn 
upon his memory, the clergy had a very different standard by 
which to try the virtues of a king. They honoured Charles the 
Fat almost as a saint. " He was," says Rhegius, contemporary 
abbot of Pruem, *'a most Christian prince, fearing God, and 
obeying his commands w4th all his heart. He also obeyed the 



S96 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XX, 

precepts of the clergy with the most profound devotion. He 
gave abundant almsj he was constantly occupied in prayer and in 
chanting of psalmsj he was indefatigable in repeating God's 
praises, and he put all his hope, and all his trust, in the Divine 
grace. He therefore regarded the tribulations of his later years as 
a purifying trial, which was to secure to him the crown of life." 
The annals of Fulda even relate, that " the heavens were seen 
to open to receive him, so that it might be made evident, that he 
whom men had despised, was the sovereign the most acceptable 
to God." 

The people of Europe had been so long accustomed to the he- 
reditary descent of monarchical power, that, at the extinction of 
the family of Charlemagne, they hesitated for some time before 
they would choose rulers who were not of that line. Neverthe- 
less, Arnulf, the bastard son of Karloman, to whom the crown 
of Germany had been offered, was not recognised by the other 
western states. The most powerful of the dukes and counts, 
especially those who could claim some kindred with the family 
of Charlemagne, either through an illegitimate or a female branch, 
called together diets in all directions, bought the suffrages of their 
partisans by ample concessions, and got themselves crowned with 
the title of kings. 

In the course of the same year, (888,) Eudes, count of Paris, 
who had displayed some bravery in the defence of that city 
•against the Normans, was crowned at Compiegne and acknow- 
ledged by Neustria. Rainulf II., count of Poictiers, with the ap- 
probation of another diet, took the title of king of Aquitaine. 
Ouido, duke of Spoleto, who had fiefs ami partisans in France, 
was proclaimed by a diet of the kingdom of Lorraine, assembled 
at Langres, and was anointed and crowned by the bishop of that 
tityj but finding, in a short time, that his followers were luke- 
warm in his cause, he returned to Italy, where, in 890, he ob- 
tained the crown of Lombardy and that of the empire, which he 
shared with his son Lambert. Another diet had adjudged the 
crown of Lombardy to Berenger, duke of Friuli, in 888. Be- 
tween the Jura and the Alps, a count Rudolf, who governed 
Helvetia, assembled a diet at St. Maurice, in the Valais, caused 
himself to be crowned, and founded the new monarchy of Trans- 
jurane Burgundy. At Valence, Louis, the son of Boson, was 
crowned, in 890, king of Provence. At Vannes, Alain, sur- 
named the Great, was crowned king of Britany. In Gascony, 



CHAP. XX.] RISE OF NEW MONARCHIES. 397 

Sanchez, surnamed Mitarra, contented himself with the title 
of duke; but, at the same time, disclaimed all allegiance to 
France. 

At the moment of the formation of all these new kingdoms, 
the torch of western history seems suddenly quenched. For 
nearly half a century all the chronicles are mute. Wars be- 
tween these numerous sovereigns, (to whom we have to add 
Charles the Simple, crowned at Rheims on the 28th of January, 
893, and Zwentibold, natural son of Arnulf, crowned king of 
Lorraine, at Worms, in 895,) filled the twelve remaining years 
of the century; but they were languidly carried on by sovereigns 
without troops, dependent on vassals with whom they were al- 
ways obliged to compromise, and whom they did not dare to 
command. A universal confusion reigned throughout the West, 
but no individual character is sufficiently striking to excite our 
curiosity; and, perhaps, we ought to be grateful to the chroniclers 
whose silence prevents us from involving ourselves in such a 
labyrinth. 

The deposition of Charles the Fat, and the extinction of the 
legitimate Carlovingian race, overthrew the colossal empire 
reared by Charlemagne; and in the partition of the provinces of 
which it was composed, gave occasion to continual wars; to an 
anarchy, a confusion of rights and claims, which we are led, at 
first sight, to think must have aggravated the sufferings of the 
already miserable people. And we, accordingly, find, that al- 
most all modern writers agree in representing the deposition of 
Charles the Fat, and the first interregnum which followed it in 
the Western empire, as a calamity which replunged Europe into 
the state of barbarism whence Charlemagne had begun to raise it. 
We are, likewise, left without the guidance of historical docu- 
ments at this period, and we have to grope our way through a 
century in darkness almost as complete as that which precedes 
the reign of Charlemagne. 

Nevertheless, it was in the midst of this obscurity that new 
and numerous states came into existence; that a population which 
had been almost destroyed began to recover itself; that some vir- 
tues, the virtues of feudalism at least, were once more held in ho- 
nour; that national courage, which seemed extinct, regained all its 
loftiness and splendour, at least among the aristocracy. The first 
century of the government of the Carlovingians destroyed old 

France; the second, which equally bears their name, though the 

51 



398 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XX. 

power of Charles the Simple and of his children was but a sha- 
dow, recreated modern France. 

The period which we have just passed through is probably 
without a parallel in history for its calamities, its weakness, and 
its infamy. Although military courage be far from the first of so- 
cial virtues, its complete annihilation is, perhaps, the most certain 
indication of the extinction of all others. It throws a nation into 
such a state of abject dependence on every vicissitude and on every 
oe, that if it were possible to unite all the advantages of the most 
perfect government with the cowardice of a whole people, all those 
advantages would be utterly valueless, since they would be utter- 
ly without security. 

But the history of the world presents us with no example of 
pusillanimity comparable to that of the subjects of the empire 
when they allowed themselves to be plundered, made captive, 
and slaughtered by the Northmen. It was not a great people 
which poured down upon them; it was not those successive waves 
of northern barbarians that inundated the Roman empire. It 
was, on the contrary, handfuls of pirates; adventurers who landed 
on the coasts of France in open barks, lightly armed, and almost 
without horses. 

In times less remote we have seen the flourishing empires of 
Peru and Mexico ravaged, and ultimately conquered, by bands 
of warriors scarcely more numerous. But the Spaniards had fire- 
arms, cuirasses, and helmets impenetrable to the arrows of the In- 
dians; while, on the other hand, their finely tempered sabres cut 
through all the Indian armour. They had horses trained to war and 
exulting in battle, which bore their riders with frightful rapidity 
against enemies who always fought on foot. Lastly, they had ves- 
sels which the Americans took for winged monsters, vomiting 
fire and flame. 

It was not thus that the Northmen disembarked from their 
wattled boats on the banks of the Seine and the Loire. Their bo- 
dies were half naked, their weapons were inferior to those of the 
people of the south, who had so long been masters of the mechani- 
cal arts. But these northern sea-robbers were superior in warlike 
virtues to the two other wandering nations who also ravaged the 
empire. The Saracens had lost their victorious fanaticism and 
their love of glory, during the decay of the empire of the khaliphs: 
and their expeditions into Italy and Provence had no longer any in- 
centive but the love of plunder. The Hungarians, who inspired so 



CHAP. XX.] INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. S99 

much terror in Germany, rode little horses, which a Frank sol- 
dier would have disdained; they wore a fur coat instead of a cui- 
rass, and a light lance stood them instead of a sword or sabre. 
But Saracens, Hungarians, or Normans, all had to deal with dis- 
armed and degraded peasants, and a degenerate nobility. They 
found victims, not enemies, in the empire of the West. 

The moral explanation of this double revolution, which in the 
ninth century annihilated the national courage and destroyed the 
population; and in the tenth, multiplied the people and gave force 
and elevation to their character, is to be sought less in public in- 
stitutions than in the personal interest of the great proprietors. 
The consolidation of the empire of Charlemagne into one body, 
had delivered the minds of the great proprietors from all expecta- 
tion of proximate war. They no longer occupied themselves in 
any degree with the means of defending their domains, or of mul- 
tiplying the men-at-arms who lived upon them; their whole at- 
tention was directed to the extracting from them the greatest 
possible revenues; and in every age and country masters and 
landlords have been disposed to think that they were enriching 
themselves when they made harder terms with their serfs or te- 
nants, when they succeeded in loading them with more onerous 
obligations and in extorting larger rents. Thus it was that the 
great mass of the nation became enslaved. But slavery and ex- 
tortion soon produced their wonted effect; families became ex- 
tinct, or fled; the population disappeared, and the greater part 
of France was changed into a desert. The great proprietors saw 
without regret, that the manses, or habitations, for each of which 
they were obliged to furnish a soldier to the king, were aban- 
doned. They thought it more profitable to themselves to turn 
their arable land into pasture, and to multiply flocks and herds 
in proportion as men diminished. They could not understand 
that a country cannot be rich when it ceases to furnish con- 
sumers, when it no longer contains a nation to feed. They fell 
into the same error into which we have seen the lairds of the 
north of Scotland fall in our own days. 

The rapid extinction of the rural population was the grand 
cause of the exposed state in which the empire was found by the 
hordes of brigands who ravaged it. We have, it is true, no ac- 
curate information concerning this fluctuation in the population. 
The historians of the time never thought of giving any account 
or explanation of it; but, in reading their narrative of events, it 



400 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XX« 

is impossible not to be struck with the solitude into which we 
are introduced. It appears as if nothing was left in France but 
convents, scattered here and there amid vast tracts of forest. 
The cities had lost, in the ninth century, the importance they 
possessed under the first line of kings. We no longer read of 
intestine factions, nor of popular tumults, nor of municipal go- 
vernments, nor of the resistance they could oppose to an enemy. 
Their gates stand open to any who are disposed to enter them. 
Often, indeed, the chronicles tell us that they were burned by 
the Normans; but the damage is always represented as less, and 
the booty carried oif as inferior in value, in these cases, than 
when the same spoilers attack a monastery. The existence of 
the peasantry is as completely overlooked as that of the flocks 
with which they are confounded in one common oblivion: all 
that we can discover is^ that the distrust of their masters had 
left them no means of resistance; and, accordingly, the North- 
men, after carrying off the wives and daughters of the peasants, 
after massacring the old men and the priests, roamed about the 
country, alone, or in small parties, wherever their inclination or 
the chase might lead them, without the slightest fear of the ven- 
geance of the natives. 

Even among the higher nobility and clergy we are amazed at 
the small number of persons who appear at any given time on 
the stage. A single count unites in his own person the titles of 
a great number of counties; a single prelate, the revenues of a 
great number of abbeys; and when the abbot Hugues, of St. 
Germain PAuxerrois, and of St. Martin de Tours, is called by 
the historians of the time VEsperance des Gaules, we feel that 
the French people are degraded to the condition of men owned 
in main morfe by a convent. 

So long as the nation was reduced to such a state of feeble- 
ness, of political ignorance, of opposition between the interests 
of the higher classes and those of the mass, a central government 
could be of no advantage to France or to Europe: it could serve 
only to perpetuate this universal degradation. It was, therefore, 
a happy event for hum.anity that the tie which held together the 
social body w^as forcibly broken at the time of the deposition of 
Charles the Fat, and that the Western empire was divided into 
several monarchies, which were soon split up again into an infi- 
nite number of smaller states. When civilization has made 
great progress, the formation of large states presents great ad- 



CHAP. XX.] RISE OF FEUDALISM. 401 

vantages: knowledge and intelligence are more easily and ra- 
pidly diffused^ commerce is more active, more regular, and more 
independent of the errors of politicians^ the power, the wealth, 
the talents which are at the disposal of government are far great- 
er^ and, if the rulers know how to make a good use of it, the 
progress of the species will be much more rapid. But, on the 
other hand, it is a far more difficult matter to establish a wise, 
tutelary, and free constitution in a great than in a small state; 
while it is much more easy to the former than to the latter to 
dispense with those advantages. A great empire sustains itself 
by its mass, in spite of almost intolerable abuses; while a small 
state has no chance of permanent existence unless it be support- 
ed by some degree of patriotism and of general prosperity. 

The government of the Carlovingians had survived more cala- 
mities than would have sufficed to overthrow, ten times over, the 
governments which succeeded it. It fell beneath them, indeed, 
at last, but not till it had reached the lowest stage af contempti- 
ble imbecility. Those who gathered the fragments of the ruin 
were, perhaps, superior neither in talents, nor in virtues, nor in 
energy, to the wretched emperors who had suflfered it to fall to 
decay; but, as their interests were more nearly allied with those 
of the mass, they were sooner brought to some understanding of 
them. When, for their own defence, force became of more va- 
lue to them than riches, no high degree of perspicacity was ne- 
cessary to perceive that they gained force in proportion as they 
increased the well being of their subjects. 

Little more than twenty years had elapsed since the edict of 
Pistes had caused the total demolition of the fortifications which 
a few nobles had raised around their houses, as a defence against 
the Northmen. At that period, property, which gave the right 
of administering justice to vassals, the right of life and death 
over serfs, does not yet appear to have existed as a political 
force; it did not as yet secure to the nobles the means of de- 
fence and intimidation. But, after the deposition of Charles the 
Fat, no public authority prevented any individual from providing 
for his own defence by any means he had at command; from 
seeking within his own domains, first, security, and then, the 
power of making himself formidable. The dukes, counts, mar- 
quesses, and abbots who had shared among them the whole terri- 
tory of France, consequently soon changed their object and their 
policy: they substituted ambition for cupidity; and demanded 



402 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. LcHAP. XX. 

of the earth men for the maintenance of their rights and their 
existence, rather than wealth for the indulgence of their appe- 
tites. Indeed, money no longer appeared of any value, except 
in so far as it was convertible into people. The value of an ex- 
tent of country was estimated, not according to the number of 
pounds of silver for which its produce could be sold, but accord- 
ing to the number of soldiers it could send forth to follow the 
banner of their lord, or to defend his castle from aggression. 

Thus it was that this period of troubles and disasters which 
seemed to threaten with absolute destruction the miserable rem- 
nant of the population of the West, became, in fact, the epoch 
of a great and beneficent revolution, which raised that popula- 
tion from its abasement. The lord offered his land to the vassal 
who appeared disposed to cultivate it, and was satisfied with a 
small remuneration in money, or in produce^ instead of rent, he 
required personal services. The terms on which these various 
services were exacted, were as different as the orders of men by 
whom they were rendered. Younger sons of noble families, free 
men, citizens or burgesses, liberated slaves, even serfs, were ad- 
mitted, in a regular scale of subordination, which they never at- 
tempted to infringe, to share the soil, and to give the equivalent 
in service. All these men, the majority of whom would have 
been destined, under the old order of things, to grow old in celi- 
bacy, were incited to marry, and could see, with satisfaction, a 
family multiplied around them. 

The higher among them formed anew those intermediate or- 
ders of gentlemen, of leudes, of freemen, which had almost dis- 
appeared. The latter even rose, instead of sinking, in the scale 
of society. The vilein or serf was, it is true, in a state of abso- 
lute dependence on his lord. He had, as against him, no protec- 
tion for liberty, property, honour, or even lifej and yet he had 
rarely to dread any violent invasion of them. He regarded his 
chieftain as his natural judge and protector, and generally felt 
for him that respect, and even love, which the weak so readily 
grant to those whom they think of a superior race. The use of 
arms, which had been restored to him, had raised him in his own 
eyes, and had enabled him to regain some of those virtues which 
slavery destroys. He did not, indeed, go to battle on horse- 
back, as the nobles and freemen did, but, at all events, he took 
the field with them; resistance was no longer forbidden to himf 



CHAP. XX.] RISE OF FEUDALISM. 403 

and the consciousness of physical strength gave him the measure 
of the respect he had it in his power to command. 

The rapidity with which the population increased, from these 
various causes, between the tenth and the twelfth centuries, is 
prodigious. Each of the great counties or earldoms split, in the 
course of two or three generations, into an infinite number of 
rural counties, viscounties, and seigniories^ each of these was 
then subdivided in like manner. A village with its lord sprang 
up in every deserted and uncultivated tracts every community 
had its fortified place and its means of defence^ and in less than 
two hundred years a count of Toulouse, a count of Yermandois, 
an earl of Flanders, became more powerful, and commanded 
braver, better disciplined, and even more numerous troops, than 
Charles the Fat, or Louis the Debonnaire, when sole monarchs 
of the Western empire, could have summoned to the field. But 
this prosperous state of the rural population lasted only so long 
as the nobles felt their own need of it. From the time that the 
great proprietors arrogated to themselves the right of private 
warfare, the iron yoke of the oligarchy had been lightened, only 
to fall back with greater violence and weight on the neck of the 
people, as soon as public order was sufficiently re-established 
to make it impossible for individuals to refer their differences to 
the decision of the sword. As soon as the lords ceased to want 
soldiers, they fell into their ancient greediness of money, and be- 
gan once more to grind and oppress the husbandman. Then it 
was that the vileins were reduced to a shameful state of degra- 
dation: then it was that the feudal system pressed upon the peo- 
ple as the most intolerable of despotisms. It had introduced 
some order, some virtue, and some prosperity into a turbulent 
anarchy^ but, from the time government was re-established, it 
did but add its own yoke to the yoke of the laws, till the two 
combined became too grievous for man to bear. 

Thus, the feudal system, which, for a time, perhaps, contri- 
buted more than any other human institution to the multiplica ' 
tion and the prosperity of the lower orders, has come down to 
the posterity of those very men who owed their existence and 
their well-being to it, loaded with the responsibility of all the 
oppression and all the suffering which marked its decays and its 
name is still mentioned with terror, while the infamy which 
ought to attach to the name of the Carlovingian monarchs is for- 
gotten. 



( 404 ) 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Total Cessation of intercourse between Britain and the Continent. — Invasion 
of the Picts and Scots, — Vortig-ern. — Invasions of the Jutes and Saxons. 
— Hengist and Horsa. — Division of England. — Heptarchy. — Witena-Ge- 
mote. — Britons. — Divisions of Wales and Cornwall. — Ireland. — St. Pa- 
trick. — Irish Missionaries. — Caledonia. — Extermination of the Picts. — 
Pope Gregory and the Saxon Slaves. — Reconversion of England by St. 
Augustin. — Egbert. — Union of the seven Kingdoms. — Invasion of the 
Danes. — Defeat of Egbert. — Defeat of the Danes. — Death of Egbert. — 
Ethelwolf.— His Character and Death.— His Sons Ethelbald, Ethelbert, 
Ethelred, and Alfred. — Descent of I war on Northumberland. — Horrible 
Death of Rssgner Lodbrog. — Cruelties of the Danes. — Battles between 
Iwar and Ethelred. — Defeat and Death of Ethelred. — Conquests of the 
Danes. — Alfred the Great. — His Defeat and Concealment. — His Charac- 
ter and Accomplishments.— State of the Saxon People. — Battle of Ken- 
with. — Defeat and Death of Ubba. — Capture of the Raven Standard. — 
Visit of Alfred to the Danish Camp. — His Reappearance at the Head of 
a Saxon Army. — Defeat of Guthrum, and Submission of the Danes. — 
Alfred, Founder of the British Navy. — Witena-Gemote. — His Reforms in 
Law and Police. — His Learning and Love of Letters. — Oxford. — Death 
of Alfred. 



From the time of the death of Honorius, and the recall of the 
last of the Roman legions sent to defend it, we have hardlj had oc- 
casion to mention the island of Britain. It has been our endeavour 
to connect together the history of those countries which exercised 
a reciprocal influence, which acted and reacted on each other. 
But the great island of Britain, after having been for awhile 
drawn into the huge vortex of the world of Rome, had com- 
pletely escaped from it. From that time, she had formed a world 
apart, severed from the rest of mankind, a stranger to the hopes 
and the fears by which Europe was agitated. She had been for- 
gotten by the other former provinces of Rome, with which she 
had been associated in a common dependence, and in the ten 
books of the History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours, not a 
single British name occurs. 

The total oblivion into whidi Britain had fallen among the 
Greeks is still more extraordinary. Two centuries and a half 
after the legions of Britain had given to the empire the future 
founder of Constantinople^ one century only after the final re- 
call of the Romans^ Procopius, the first historian of the lower 



CHAP. XXI.] BRITISH HISTORY. ' 405 

empire, consigns Britain to a place in the regions of prodigies 
and fables. He relates, that the souls of those who die in Gaul 
are nightlj borne to the shores of that island, and delivered over 
to the infernal powers, by the boatmen of Friesland and Batavia. 
" These boatmen," says he, ** see no one^ but, in the dead of 
night, a terrible voice calls them to their mysterious office. They 
find by the shore strange and unknown boats ready to sail; they 
feel the weight of the souls which enter them, one after the other, 
till the gunwale of the boat sinks to a level with the water. Ne- 
vertheless, they still see nothing. The same night, they reach 
the coast of Britain. Another voice calls the ghosts one by one, 
and they land in silence." Such, after a short but total cessa- 
tion of intercourse, was the only notion of England entertained 
by the rest of mankind. 

Britain, however, in her isolation, had shared the fate of the 
other dismembered portions of the empire. The same strug- 
gle had arisen between the barbarians, and those who had caught 
civilization from their Roman masters. But neither the people, 
nor the circumstances which brought about the overthrow of the 
continental domination of Rome, were the same as those which 
caused the destruction of the system she had established in Bri- 
tain; and if, in her progress from ancient to modern civilization, 
through barbarism, she underwent nearly the same changes, it is 
a proof that the fate of Europe was the consequence of internal 
organization, the operation of which was every where the same, 
and not of events which varied with each particular country. 

This total separation of Britain from the rest of the world be- 
gins from the year 426 or 427, the supposed date of the depar- 
ture of the last Roman legion from her shores. It ends, or at 
least becomes less distinct, from the time of the coronation of 
Alfred the Great, in 872. During these four centuries and a 
half, the chronicles of Britain contain a prodigious number of 
facts, of names of kings, of dates of battles; and, perhaps, a 
writer inspired by an intense spirit of nationality might succeed 
in imparting some interest to them. 

But a foreigner is repelled by the frequency of revolutions 
ending in the most unimportant results, and can hardly be ex- 
pected to undertake a labour which promises him no adequate 
recompense. Wherever history leads to the study of man as a 
moral and a social being; wherever it displays the development 
of his mind and character, the lofty play of sentiment and pas- 

52 



406 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

sion: narrowness of territorial bounds detracts nothing from the 
importance of the results to which it leads. The republics of 
Greece, the free cities of Italy, the cantons of Switzerland^ in 
the bright and palmy days of their freedom, will doubtless teach 
us more as to what constitutes the happiness and the dignity of 
man, than those vast monarchies of Asia, where every error of 
the ruler decides the destiny of millions. 

But the small British and Saxon kingdoms, which for four or 
five centuries existed simultaneously or successively in Britain, 
afford no field for the display of great qualities or heroic virtues. 
Nor are their records sufficiently detailed to bring us acquainted 
with individual character, or with the workings of human pas- 
sions. Their history is almost conjectural; and even were we 
to devote this chapter to the repetition of all of it that has come 
down to us, we should but add to the already copious list of royal 
crimes, or furnish more disgusting pictures of the sufferings of 
humanity. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with such a 
glance ov^r these five centuries as may enable us to catch its ge- 
neral features. 

In the year 427, when the Romans abandoned Britain, they 
left it enervated, like all the other provinces of the empire; 
without fortifications, without arms, and without courage to use 
them, even had the natives possessed them. Instead of sur- 
rounding the open towns with strong fortifications, and orga- 
nizing troops for their defence, the Britons had contented them- 
selves with rebuilding the wall of Severus, which, intersecting 
the island at its narrowest point, was intended to arrest the in- 
cursions of the Picts and the Scots. But this wall, which 
might have done good service to regular troops, was of no use to 
citizens; men who, without quitting their daily occupations and 
their families, could, perhaps, have defended the ramparts of 
their cities, but who could not be expected to quit their homes, 
and post themselves at the foot of a distant fortification, whence 
they were constantly exposed to be driven. And, in fact, the 
Romans had hardly quitted the island, when the wall of Severus 
was passed by the Picts and Scots. The sole honour of these 
northern tribes, who were pastoral and entirely uncivilized, was 
the defiance of danger; their sole happiness, the robbery of their 
more industrious and more timid neighbours. They overran the 
whole of Britain several times; they devastated the country, laid 
the towns under contribution, and, finding no advantage in car- 



CHAP. XXI.] STRUGGLE BETWEEN BRITONS AND SAXONS. 407 

rying home slaves to a country already over- peopled, they mas- 
sacred all their captives. 

The terror and the desolation of the Britons were extreme. 
The towns which preserved an appearance of civilization, al- 
though leagued together, had no means of defence^ they im- 
plored succour of the Romans, already too much crippled by 
the calamities of the empire to aiford them any protection. The 
rural districts, divided among a small number of rich proprie- 
tors, were become a sort of principalities^ but a man who was 
owner of thousands of slaves, was not the more able to defend 
himself. We are assured, that one of these great proprietors, 
named Vortigern, was acknowledged chief, or king, by all the 
others, in the year 445. This new monarch is accused of being 
the first to call in the Saxon pirates as auxiliaries against the 
Scottish marauders. 

The maritime Saxons of the mouths of the Elbe^ the Jutes, 
the Angles, the Frieslanders, and other small nations of the 
same coasts, had long been in the habit of plundering the coasts 
of Gaul and Britain. Two of their chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, 
were received in 449 by Vortigern, in the Isle of Thanet, on the 
Kentish coast. They fulfilled their part of the treaty, by 
making a brave and effectual stand against the Scots: after 
having repulsed them, however, they invited their countrymen 
to cross over to them, and began to plunder those they had come 
to assist. Success soon inspired them with the project of sub- 
jugating the island. 

Then began a struggle between the Britons and the vSaxons, 
which lasted a century and a half, and which terminated in the 
extirpation of the British population, or its expulsion from the 
whole eastern side of the island. This struggle has been cele- 
brated by the romancers of the Round Table, and by historians 
little superior to romancers in credibility. King Arthur, who is 
supposed to have died in 542, at the age of ninety, was the great 
British hero of these battles, in which Vortimer, Mordred, Uther 
Pendragon, and several others, also distinguished themselves. 
There is no reason to doubt the length and fury of the conflicts, 
the result of which was the expulsion of an entire nation from its 
ancient territory; but there are very sufficient grounds for skep- 
ticism as to the number of the armies and the importance of the 
battles recorded by old writers. The Saxons, as we have alrea- 
dy seen, were subject, even in their own country, to as many 



408 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

chiefs or kings as they occupied villages: in like manner they 
gave the name of king, or sea-king, to every captain of a ship 
equipped for piracy, who landed on the coast of Britain; and it 
is probable that Hengist had but a few hundred men under him 
during the thirty -five years of continued fighting, which left him 
master of Kent. Other Saxon, Anglian, and Jutish chieftains, 
established themselves at the same time in other parts of Eng- 
land. 

The petty British lords, the ancient senators of the country, 
on their side, often assumed, or received from the Saxons, the 
title of kings. In either case the dominions of the monarch ex- 
tended to a keep or castle in which he resided, and a few vil- 
lages inhabited by his vassals and serfs. The traditions of their 
wars were preserved, and the vanity of the two parties combined 
to exaggerate their importance. These wars, far from being de- 
structive to the population, taught the chieftain all the value of 
the multiplication of his vassals. He was too much in want of 
soldiers not to endeavour to increase their numbers. The Saxon 
population spread itself over the east of the island, the British 
over the west; and those of the latter, who, having inhabited 
the eastern part, could not escape into Wales, sought refuge 
from the fury of the Saxons in little Britain, or Bretagne, on the 
coast of France. At length, after two or three generations in 
succession had lived in a constant state of bloodshed, after every 
trace of civilization had been obliterated, after the language, and 
almost all the arts of the Romans had been forgotten, the island 
of Great Britain, which then began to bear the name of England, 
was divided into three parts. 

To the east, seven independent kingdoms had been formed by 
the piratical people included under the common name of Anglo- 
Saxons. The three most extensive were to the north, and were 
inhabited by the Angles; the four richest and most populous 
were to the south, and inhabited by the Saxons. The three for- 
mer were, the kingdom of Northumberland, founded in 547 by 
Ida; that of East Anglia, in 571, by Ulfa; and that of Mercia, 
in 585, by Erida. 

The four Saxon kingdoms were those of Kent, founded in 460 
by Hengist; of Sussex, in 491, by Ella; of Essex, in 527, by Er- 
eenwin; and of Wessex, the most powerful of the southern king- 
doms, in 519, by Cerdic. The opposite courses of the Thames 
and the Severn separated the Saxon kingdoms from those of the 



CHAP. XXI.] SAXON HEPTARCHY. 409 

Angles^ nevertheless these two people regarded one another near- 
ly as countrymen, and the seven kingdoms of the Saxon heptarchy 
formed, to some intents, but one single political body. 

The kings whom the Saxons acknowledged as their leaders in 
war, had but a very limited authority in peaces and the assembly 
of the elders, or wise men, of each kingdom, the Witena-gemote, 
was consulted on all important measures, whether legislative or 
administrative. On some occasions one of the seven kings was 
acknowledged as chief of the heptarchy, and then a Witena-ge- 
mote of the seven kingdoms was convened to deliberate on the 
interests of the whole confederate body. 

To the west, the ancient Britons, who belonged to the Cymri, 
one of the two grand divisions of the Celtic race, were limited 
within the district of Wales, which was divided into three petty 
kingdoms, and the western point of England, the kingdom of 
Cornwall. They had retained their original language, they were 
fervently attached to the Christian religion, and, for the perform- 
ance of its rites and offices, had preserved some knowledge of 
the Latin language, and the use of writing, — at least among the 
clergy. But they had been able to keep up scarcely any commu- 
nication with Romej and when, after an interval of two centuries, 
they renewed their connexion with the rest of the church, they 
had considerable difficulty in submitting to the changes which 
had taken place in that primitive Christianity they had learned 
and maintained. 

Welsh missionaries, and especially the elder St. Patrick, and 
his nephew of the same name, had converted Ireland at the end 
of the fifth century. As that was just the time of the greatest 
ravages of the Saxons, it is very probable that a great number of 
the more quiet and unwarlike Britons went to seek tranquillity 
in that island, which was less exposed to storms and convulsions, 
and carried with them a civilization which the sword was then 
destroying in Britian. The Irish, separated from the whole world, 
having enough for their maintenance^ but scarcely acquainted 
with the luxuries of life, sought food for their activity in the study 
of sacred letters. This is the brilliant period of their literature; 
the period in which arose those pious men who undertook the 
conversion of Scotland, and who, a century later, went forth as 
missionaries into Germany and the forest of the Ardennes. They 
afterwards founded the convents of St. Gall, Luxeuil, Anegrai, 
and, lastly, of Bobbio, in Italy, where we are surprised to trace 
the footsteps of an Irish missionary, St. Colomban. 



410 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

The northern extremity of Great Britian was always occupied 
by the Picts on the west, and the Scots on the east: these two 
nations were branches of the Gaelic tribe, another great division 
of the Celtic family. They had never been subjugated by the 
Romans, and had remained almost entirely ignorant of agriculture, 
and dependent on the produce of their herds; yet they had, if 
possible, retrograded in the career of civilization, since all the 
arts which soften or embellish life had been destroyed among their 
neighbours. Their incursions had long desolated Britain; but 
whether it be that their arms were inferior to those of the Saxons, 
who at the same time invaded the southern part of Scotland, or 
whether there was no longer any plunder to allure them onward 
in a country already so devastated, it seems certain that, after 
the middle of the fifth century, they desisted from their incursions. 
Their conversion to Christianity dates from about the same time, 
and was mainly brought about by the labours of Welsh and 
Irish missionaries. The Picts and the Scots continued to share 
Caledonia up to the year 839 or 840, when the Picts were de- 
feated in two battles by the Scots, commanded by their king, 
Kenneth II., and were finally exterminated. The nation was 
utterly extinct, and the whole country took the name of Scotland. 

It was not till the year 597, that Christianity was introduced 
anew among the Anglo-Saxons. England was at that time one 
of the greatest European markets for slaves; whenever the Sax- 
ons felt the pressure of want, they had no hesitation in selling 
their children. They were extremely numerous in France; Ba- 
thilde, queen of Clovis II., had herself been a Saxon slave bought 
by a Frank. Anglo-Saxon slaves were exposed to sale in the 
markets of Rome. On one occasion, Gregory the Great, after- 
wards pope, struck with the delicacy of their skins, and the beau- 
ty of their fair hair, asked of what nation they were. " They are 
Angles," (Angli,) said the merchant. — *' Say rather angels,"* 
said Gregory. — " What is their birth-place?" — ** Deiri in North- 
umberland." — " De irap they must be rescued from the anger 
of God." Gregory's puns struck him as being a revelation, and 
he was no sooner seated in the papal chair than he took measures 
for the conversion of Britain. He intrusted this task to the monk 
Augustin, afterwards created first archbishop of Canterbury. This 
Roman priest set out, accompanied by forty missionaries, to whom 

* " Non, imo, Angli sed Angeli." 



CHAP. XXI.] INVASION OF THE DANES. 411 

Englaird owed the knowledge of what was called Christianity in 
the sixth century; that is, of the religion which it suited the church 
to promulgate. 

The conversion of England began with her kings, and the new 
faith descended to their subjects. It took root, and was estab- 
lished without persecution; nor was the change stained with the 
blood of a single martyr. The popular faith, if not very enlight- 
ened, was not the less lively; nor was it less efficacious in inclining 
those who embraced it to great sacrifices. A reputation for sanc- 
tity was easily obtained, especially by large donations to the 
church. It is, however, somewhat remarkable, that during the 
heptarchy, seven Anglo-Saxon kings, seven queens, eight princes, 
and sixteen princesses of the blood, received the honours of ca- 
nonization. It is not less so, that, that in the same period of time, 
ten kings and eleven queens laid aside a crown to devote them- 
selves to a monastic life. 

The government of the Saxon heptarchy, or the independence 
of the seven little kingdoms into which England was divided, 
lasted three hundred and seventy-eight years, if we reckon from 
the foundation of the earliest; two hundred and forty-three, if 
we reckon from that of the most recent, up to the year 827, when 
the whole Anglo-Saxon people acknowledged the sovereign au- 
thority of Egbert. 

This monarch had been driven from his hereditary kingdom of 
Wessex, and had taken refuge with Charlemagne, who had given 
him a friendly reception at his court, and had, probably, contri - 
buted to form his mind, and to elevate his views and his hopes. 
Egbert had passed twelve years in the society of the great mo- 
narch, when he was recalled from his court, in the year 800; the 
very year of the re-establishment of the Western empire, to take 
possession of the throne of Wessex, — the largest of the four 
southern kingdoms. By a series of successful wars, Egbert sub- 
jugated the three other Saxons kingdoms, and united them under 
the common name of Wessex. He, at the same time, compelled 
the Anglian kingdoms to promise him obedience, permitting them, 
however, to retain the government of their feudatory princes. 
Lastly, he compelled the three British kingdoms in Wales, and 
the fourth in Cornwall, also to do homage to him as their suze- 
rain or head. He had been scarcely five years in the enjoyment 
of peace and of undisputed sovereignty, when the Danes ap- 
peared on the south of the island, with thirty-five vessels; landed 



412 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

at Charmouth, met Egbert, defeated him, and loaded their vessels 
with all the portable wealth of the district, (a. d. 833.) 

Charlemagne, at the summit of his power, had seen the North- 
men brave him with impunity on the coasts of Friesland. He 
is said to have wept over the calamities which awaited his suc- 
cessors. Egbert, the imitator of Charlemagne on a smaller stage, 
witnessed the still more humiliating commencement of the mis- 
fortunes which were destined to afflict the kingdom he had 
founded. 

Britain, totally separated as it was from the continent, expe- 
rienced in the same manner the eff'ects of the same cause. The 
incorporation of several smaller states into one monarchy, which 
seemed calculated to constitute its strength, was the source only 
of its weakness^ and disgraceful calamities arose at the very mo- 
ment in which the monarch thought he had founded the national 
power- and glory. Each of the kingdoms which Charlemagne 
had conquered was able, single-handed, to keep its enemies in 
check 5 all together were no longer competent to do so after he 
had united them. Each of the petty kingdoms of the heptarchy 
had subsisted without fear of foreign invasion j — they fell before 
it, when they were consolidated into one empire. The North- 
men or Danes, who made a simultaneous attack on the coasts of 
France and England, in the ninth century, had been long fami- 
liar with the coasts of Britain 5 for they were but another branch 
of the same people who had conquered it three centuries earlier. 
It appears, indeed, that the Anglo-Saxons of the fifth century 
came from the country lying between Friesland and Jutland, 
while the homes of the Norse conquerors of the ninth, reached 
from Jutland to Norway. The Jutes or inhabitants of Jutland, 
are mentioned at both periods; and, besides, the conquests of 
Charlemagne had driven back the southern upon the northern 
Saxons, so that the same people no longer issued from the same 
shores. From the time of the decline of the Roman empire, all these 
northern tribes lying on the sea, had addicted themselves to pira- 
cy, and exulted in those perilous expeditions in which they braved 
at once the fury of the northern tempest and the sword of the 
enemy. Yet so long as, in the countries they attacked, every 
little province had its chief, its councils, its warriors; so long as 
every district had its association of free and warlike citizens, re- 
sistance was always at hand; it was so prompt and efficacious 
that the Northmen were compelled to abandon piracy, as the 
Scots were marauding. 



CHAP. XXI.] ETHELWOLF. 41S 

As soon, on the contrary, as every district was forced to ap- 
peal to a king whose seat of government was at a great distance, 
to implore his assistance, or to await his orders^ as soon as every 
career open to ambition, transplanted men from their natal soil 
to the courtj — so that what had been a centre became a mere 
province or appendage, and a man might make his fortune inde- 
pendent of all local calamities;— all those small kingdoms, which 
had been filled with armed men who had for centuries waged a 
desperate war of resistance against neighbours constantly endea- 
vouring to invade them, were found incapable of defending them- 
selves against a few handsful of sea-robbers; and little crews of 
adventurers in open boats, attempted and achieved conquests in 
which thousands of brave men had failed. 

In 835, two years after his defeat at Charmouth, Egbert 
avenged himself on the Danes. He defeated a fresh body of 
them who had landed at Hengston, on the coast of Cornwall. He 
died in 838, leaving only one son, Ethelwolf, who succeeded him. 

If Egbert exhibits some points of comparison with his illus- 
trious contemporary and friend Charlemagne, — the resemblance 
of Ethelwolf to Louis le Debonnaire is much more striking. 
Like him, he suifered his kindness to degenerate into weakness, 
and his religion into an abject submission to priests and monks: 
like him, he hastened to share his power with his son Athelstan, 
whom he created king of Kent; like him, at an advanced age, on 
his return from a pilgrimage to Rome, in 855, he married another 
Judith, a grand -daughter of the ambitious queen of Louis le De- 
bonnaire: and this young wife embroiled him with his sons, by 
insinuating into their minds the fear of a fresh partition of his 
territory, Ethelbald, son of Ethelwolf, took arms against his fa- 
ther, and the good-natured {debonnaire) monarch of England 
left behind him, at his death, in 857, a divided empire and a totter- 
ing throne. 

Several of these coincidences are accidental, no doubt; but some 
are dependant on the nature of things. A great man arising in 
the midst of barbarians perceives the advantages of a liberal edu- 
cation, and endeavours to procure them for his children; but in 
such an age he can find no instructers in science but pedants; 
and it was in fact to monastic pedants that the training of Ethel- 
wolf and Louis le Debonnaire was confined: both were born in 
luxury and surrounded by flattery; both degenerated, as the sons 

of great men so often degenerate; and the fruit of the tree of 

53 



414 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

knowledge, which had nourished and strengthened their fathers, 
turned to poison in their hands. They learned to believe upon 
mere assertion; to tremble before a man; to expiate crimes by 
penances; and, even at an advanced period of life, to contract 
disproportionate marriages, in order to secure themselves against 
temptation. 

Ethelwolf, like Louis le Debonnaire, left four sons; but the 
custom of dividing the monarchy among the princes of the blood 
had not gained ground among the Saxons. Etheibald, to whom 
during his lifetime he had made over the kingdom of Kent, and 
Ethelbert, to whom he left all the rest of his kingdom, alone suc- 
ceeded him. It was, however, established, that the four brothers 
should succeed each other, to the exclusion of children under 
age; and they did, in fact, reign in succession — Etheibald, from 
857 to 860; Ethelbert, from 857 to 866; Ethelred, from 866 to 
871; and Alfred the Great, from 871 to 900. The whole of this 
period, like that embracing the reigns of the four sons of Louis le 
Debonnaire, is filled with the disastrous invasions of the Danes. 

The adventurers who issued forth from all the coasts of Scan- 
dinavia, from all the ports of the Baltic, and who, though dif- 
fering in language and in origin, were all comprehended under 
the common name of Danes in England, and of Normans in 
France, seemed to have formed different projects on these two 
countries. The coasts and the courses of the rivers of France 
accessible to their boats, were still enriched by the effects of a 
long established civilization and industry. Capital accumulated 
in the preceding centuries was still deposited there; indeed, it 
had increased during the reign of Charlemagne. On the other 
hand, the people all along the coasts were total strangers to the 
Germanic races, nearly unarmed, and wholly unwarlike in their 
habits; they could hardly oppose any resistance, nor did the Nor- 
mans seem to have any other object than to plunder them. Eng- 
land was poorer and more warlike. It had no wealth wherewith 
to tempt the northern freebooter but that of its fields, which its 
brave and warlike population was ready to defend. The Danes, 
therefore, when they attacked England, aimed at conquest rather 
than at spoil. During the reigns of Ethelwolf and Etheibald, they 
made some descents on the coasts; but their reception was such 
as to convince them that the gains of such incursions were not 
likely to be proportioned to their danger; and from the year 840 
to 860, years so disastrous to France, the shores of England were 



CHAP. XXI.] INVASION OF THE DANES. 415 

but rarely attacked. But the profits of the profession of corsair, the 
glory and the risks of these expeditions, soon attracted to the 
ports of Denmark adventurers from every part of the North. 

It was a new channel into which the torrent of emigration 
forced itself; and the tribes which had been wont to send forth 
swarms to invade the empire by land, now launched them upon 
the deep. Bands of Northmen ravaged France from side to sidej 
they made descents on the coasts of Spain and Portugal, which 
they disputed with the Saracens; they penetrated into the Medi- 
terranean, and the mouths of the Rhone received the barks of 
Drontheim. The Danes appear to have conceived the project of 
conquering the island of Great Britain, which, by its contiguity 
to the scene of their spoliation, would afford a convenient recep- 
tacle for their booty, enable them to refit their vessels, or fur- 
nish them with new ships, and with hands for their service. 
About the year 860, they renewed their attacks upon England 
with the barbarity with which they carried on all their wars, but 
also with a persistency, with a determination to gain a settlement 
in the country, which is not perceptible in their invasions of 
France. 

It was on the shores of the feudatory kingdom of Northum- 
berland, that Iwar, one of the sons of the Danish lord Raegner 
Lodbrog, made a descent with a formidable army. It is affirmed, 
that he had been invited and introduced into the country by an 
earl Bruen, whose wife had been dishonoured by one of the Nor- 
thumbrian kings; while the other sovereign of their little coun- 
try had exasperated the vengeance of the Danes by an act of 
cruelty worthy of his age. Having taken Rsegner Lodbrog pri- 
soner, he had cast him into a deep pit filled with serpents, and 
left him there to die. The death-song composed by Rsegner in 
this appalling situation, became the war-song of his countrymen, 
and has come down to us. 

The two kings of Northumberland, till then at variance, now 
vainly united to oppose their terrible enemy: they were defeated, 
the one before York, the other at EUescross; the country was ra- 
vaged with atrocious cruelty; those taken in arms found no mer- 
cy, and the priests and monks, who affected to work miracles, 
and whom the Danes regarded as formidable enchanters, were 
not treated with less inhumanity. The nuns had still worse evils 
to dread. The abbess of Coldingham, having to announce to 
the sisterhood over which she presided, that the Danes were at 



416 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

hand, and that they were without defence, set them the example 
of the only means of escaping outrage. She cut off her nose 
and upper lip, to render herself an object of horror and disgust 
to the conquerors. The Danes rushed into the convent^ but 
meeting only bleeding and mutilated faces, they recoiled in ter- 
ror. Too savage, however, to be touched with the courage of 
these unhappy women, they shut the gates of the convent, and 
kindled a fire around it, in which all their victims perished. 

The Danes also laid waste the kingdom of Merciaj they con- 
quered that of East Anglia, and its feudatory king, Edmund, 
who was regarded as a saint, was massacred by them in a place 
which still bears his name — St. Edmund's Bury, or Burg. 
These three kingdoms, whose kings were vassals of Ethelred, 
were much more extensive than his hereditary sovereignty of 
Wessex, situated to the south of the Thames and the Severn. 
This latter country, however, the capital of which was Winches- 
ter, was much more populous, richer, and, consequently, more 
important than all the others combined. 

The Danes had not merely pillaged Northumberland; they had 
established colonies there, partitioned out lands, and a part of 
their families had betaken themselves to the peaceful occupations 
of husbandry! circumstances which seem to prove, that from 
their very first campaign their intention was not only, as in 
France, to carry off' plunder, but to make themselves masters of 
the soil. I war, however, in order to secure himself the more 
firmly in his conquest, proceeded to attack Ethelred in the king- 
dom of Wessex. Nine furious and sanguinary battles were 
fought between the invaders and the invaded in the course of a 
single year. The English defended themselves like brave men, 
and their king proved himself worthy to command them. But 
numbers at length prevailed over their obstinate courage; and in 
the last of these battles, a. d, 872, Ethelred was killed. 

On the death of Ethelred, the fourth brother, Alfred, ascended 
the throne of Wessex, to the exclusion of the sons of his prede- 
cessor; whether, according to the will of his father, who is said 
to have thus determined the succession, or, whether, from the 
choice of the people, who felt that, in a crisis of such peril, they 
needed a man, and not a child to govern them, is not certainly 
known. The Danes were now masters of three of the most an- 
cient kingdoms: they had, it is true, delegated their sceptres to 
English kings, whom they held in a state of dependence: but 



CHAP. XXI.] CONqUESTS OF THE DANES. 417 

this was merely in order not to reveal too broadly to the original 
population the servitude into which they had fallen; to preserve 
for a time the forms of a national government after the substance 
was destroyed. These kings were useful to the Danes in sanc- 
tioning their usurpations; in legalizing their levies of money; 
and perhaps, still more, in rendering odious a government which 
it was their object to overthrow. The inhabitants of the pro- 
vinces, indeed, were not long in perceiving that these phantoms 
of royalty, the slaves and tools of their conquerors, were a bur- 
den, and not a protection to them. Oppressed as they were by 
the Danish yoke, they demanded that at least it might be the 
only one laid upon them. Their prayer was readily heard, and 
acceded to by Iwar and Ubba, the sons of Rsegner Lodbrog. 
The feudatory kings to the north of the Thames were suppressed. 
The Danes mingled with the Saxons, as cultivators of the soil, 
and as fellow-countrymen; all the cities were open to them: 
even London, which then belonged to the kingdom of Mercia, 
fell into their power; whilst their armies penetrated Wessex, 
which, at that time, reached from the shores of Kent to the bor- 
ders of Cornwall, on every side. 

Alfred, having been defeated by the Danes in a battle, had 
signed a treaty, by which he bound himself to give no assistance 
to the counties north of the Thames and the Severn, on condi- 
tion that he was to be left in undisturbed possession of those to 
the south of those rivers. But no treaty could be binding on the 
bands of independent adventurers who every spring quitted their 
northern shores, and who gloried in the cruelties they inflicted 
on the inhabitants of more temperate climes. New chieftains, 
who had no connexion with the sons of Rsegner Lodbrog, sur- 
prised and pillaged Wareham, laid siege to Exeter, which they 
likewise plundered, gave battle seven times in one year (a. d. 
876,) to king Alfred, and thus awakened in the Danes, settled 
in the north of the island, the hope of conquering the whole of 
England. The colonists accordingly broke the peace they had 
sworn to: the possession of London secured them a safe passage 
over the Thames, in 877 they entered Wessex, took Chippen- 
ham, one of its largest towns, and thus struck such terror into 
the English, that Alfred, who strove to assemble his army, found 
himself suddenly deserted by all his warriors. As the only 
means of escaping from death or captivity, he assumed the dis- 
guise of a poor labourer, and sought refuge and concealment in 



418 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

the hut of a shepherd in the marches of Somersetshire. It was 
built on a small plot of solid ground, not above two acres in ex- 
tent, and approachable onlj by a difficult and almost impercep- 
tible path through a sedgy morass. This small patch of land 
was afterwards illustrious as the asylum of the noble warrior, and 
was thence called JEtheling-ey, or the Noble Island. 

The man who lay hidden from every eye in ^theling-ey, — 
who was known only to his host, and was regarded by his hostess 
as an equal, or rather inferior, whom she scolded when he suf- 
fered her cakes to burn,— -was worthy to save England, and to 
restore the monarchy. He was nearly thirty years of age; his 
countenance was handsome, noble, and intrepid; his skill in all 
bodily exercises, his dexterity in shooting with the bow, would 
have sufficed, united as they were with consummate bravery, to 
obtain for him a distinguished rank as a mere soldier. The 
sweetness and benevolence which characterized all his inter- 
course with men endeared him to all who came near him: he 
had successfully cultivated poetry and music; and his mind, fos- 
tered by the early care of an enlightened mother, was enlarged 
and adorned by study to a degree unknown among his contem- 
poraries. 

All these qualities, however, do not suffice to form a hero; 
they raise an individual to one of the highest steps in a scale 
which all may endeavour to climb; but the force of character and 
of will, the clear judgment which decides what is needed for a 
nation, the creative genius which finds the means of producing 
it, are the qualities which alone can constitute a great king; and 
these Alfred united in a supreme degree. He passed six months 
in his profound retreat — his very existence unknown to the whole 
world — deprived of all the conveniences of life; nor, during this 
long interval of apparently hopeless inaction, did he ever give 
himself up to despondency. He polished his bow, and kept his 
arms in order for the field, and he waited with patience and con- 
fidence the fit moment to emerge from his obscurity. 

The Saxons, who, in all their battles, had shown that they 
were worthy to have a country, were, indeed, struck with panic 
terror; they were dispersed, but not crushed. They had shrunk 
from engaging again in disastrous and hopeless conflicts; but most 
of them had retreated into castles or towers which they had buil t 
for their defence, or into fastnesses in woods or marshes; and if 
some had bent their necks to the yoke, and had yielded them- 



CHAP. XXI.] ALFRED. 419 

selves up to the Danes, Alfred was convinced that they would 
not long endure the vexations with which they would be harassed. 
He waited the first outbreak of their impatience^ he thought that 
it is sometimes expedient to leave the whole intolerable weight 
of tyranny to press for awhile on a people, that it may no longer 
be disposed to grudge the high price, the cruel sacrifices, by 
which alone deliverance can be bought. 

Alfred's expectations were not deceived. The Danes had dis- 
persed themselves over the whole kingdom of Wessex, in order 
to subdue every part of it^ but Ubba II., son of Rsegner Lodbrog, 
learning that a party of English had shut themselves up in the 
fort of Kenwith, in the county of Devon, marched a division of his 
troops to besiege it. The assailants had so greatly the advantage 
in point of numbers — their enemies seemed so prostrated by a 
series of disasters— that Ubba scarcely thought it worth while to 
be on his guard against them. The besieged had not the slightest 
hope of succour from any quarter^ they looked for nothing but 
death or slavery. The earl of Devon, who commanded them, 
proposed to surprise the enemy by a sortie, and to try to open to 
themselves a passage to some place of refuge, sword in hand. 
This desperate project was crowned with far better success than 
the earl himself had dared to hope*- The Danes were so little on 
their guard, that Ubba their general was killed. The Raven, 
the great standard to which they believed the fate of their nation 
mysteriously attached, ^as taken, and the whole army fled dis- 
gracefully. 

Alfred, instructed of their defeat, deemed that the moment for 
emerging from concealment had arrived. He called his chief 
friends about him; and after having concerted all his measures, 
he sent them to various places where he knew that there were 
parties of Saxons under arms; he fixed a day for their general 
meeting in the forest of Selwood, in Somersetshire; and, while his 
very existence was wholly unsuspected by the Danes, he slung 
his harp over his shoulder, and went to the camp which Gu thrum, 
the Danish general, had assembled, and entered it alone. All the 
nations of the North held music in honour, and admitted bards or 
singers to their banquets. The ancient Britons, however, claimed 
a pre-eminence above all others as poets and musicians; and the 
Welsh bards traversed hostile armies, and went unharmed amid 
the horrors of war, collecting the voluntary contributions of the 
soldiers. Alfred yielded to no one in musical skill, or in talent 



420 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

for extempore versification: his harp secured him entrance to the 
enemy's camp; he was received without distrust, admired, and 
rewarded; and after carefully observing every thing, he went to 
meet his countrymen in the forest of Selwood. 

The Saxons, inspired with new life and courage at the sight of 
their beloved prince, who seemed to rise from the dead to lead 
them, fell upon the camp of Guthrum, who did not even suspect 
the existence of a Saxon army: nearly all the Danes were cut to 
pieces. Guthrum, and the small band of followers who escaped, 
were soon besieged in a fortress; where, hopeless of being able 
long to hold out, they accepted the terms of peace which were 
oflfered them. 

Alfred granted to all who consented to become Christians, the 
privilege of residing in East Anglia; the others were permitted to 
leave the country, under a promise of seeking their fortune else- 
where. Those of the Danes who had their wives and children 
with them, and had established themselves in England, inter- 
mingled with the Saxons, whose language so nearly resembled 
their own that they might almost regard them as fellow country- 
men. These had already begun to lend an ear to the Christian 
missionaries; and their conversion, sincere or feigned, seemed 
to meet with no great obstacles. The young men, however, — the 
more ardent spirits, — could not bring themselves, inconsequence 
of one check, to renounce a life of piracy and pillage which had 
such attractions for them, and which formed so essential a part 
of the national character. Just at this crisis, the Continent, 
given over to a frightful state of anarchy,, seemed to invite their 
arms. Charles the Bald died on the 6th of October, 877; the 
Carlovingian princes who had shared his states, at variance with 
each other, and despised by their subjects, were attacked by re- 
iterated fits of illness, which disabled them from taking any mea- 
sures of defence. Hastings, after having measured himself against 
Alfred without success, led over to France the greater part of 
those Danes who had so long desolated England. Troops of these 
terrific adventurers landed in the mouths of all the rivers, from 
the Garonne to the Scheldt; others, recent from the North, took 
the same route; and for twelve years the shores of England were 
unvisited by their cruellest foes. 

Alfred took advantage of this season of repose to organize his 
future defence. The kingdom of Wessex had remained his in 
undisputed sovereignty; but Guthrum, with his consent, had re- 



CHAP. XXI.] Alfred's legislation. 421 

tired into East Anglia, and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk 
were almost entirely peopled by Danes. Others of their country- 
men occupied Mercia; others Northumberland, to which Alfred 
at that time did not even think of laying claim. The limit of his 
conquests to the northward was the city of London; which, it 
seems, he became master of about the year 880, and intrusted the 
government of it: to his son-in-law, earl Ethelred. He had, how- 
ever, lost no time in organizing the troops of Wessex, giving them 
able officers, building strong places at all points well adapted for 
the defence of the country, and, above ail, building ships of war. 
His predecessors had trusted to their troops alone for the defence 
of the coasts; and the enemy, by threatening several distant 
points, harassed them with fatigue, gained upon them in point of 
speed, and eventually always effected a landing in a point where 
no preparation had been made. The Danish vessels were fitted 
only for transport. As theirs were the only ships then on the 
seas, they were not armed; they carried war across the sea, but 
they had never made the sea the theatre of war: Alfred probably 
imitated the construction of the galleys of the Greek empire 
which he had seen in Italy. His vessels had by this time an in- 
disputable advantage over those of the Danes; they never met 
without the certain destruction of the latter. It was by means 
of these ships of war that Alfred secured the tranquillity of Wes- 
sex. In 893, Hastings made another attempt upon it, and landed 
on the coast of Kent with a powerful army. Alfred, however, 
aided by his fleet, so completely routed him, that he appears to 
have relinquished for ever the desire of disturbing the repose of 
England. He retreated, accompanied not only by all the troops 
he had brought over, but also by all he could collect in East 
Anglia, Mercia, and Northumberland. These three large dis- 
tricts, weakened by the departure of all their youthful and war- 
like population, no longer hesitated to acknowledge the authority 
of Alfred. For the last seven years of his life, he reigned alone 
in England. 

The English are fond of ascribing to this great and excellent 
monarch, either the institution or the confirmation of the laws, 
privileges, and usages which have tended the most to their pros- 
perity as a nation. We have seen that he was the founder of 
their navy — that he was the first to perceive and the first to 
prove, that it was in these wooden walls that the people of Eng- 
land ought to put their trust. With him also arose the grandeur 

54 



42^ FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. tXt* 

and prosperity of the city of London, which he almost invariably 
chose as the place of meeting of the annual parliament^ or Wite- 
na-gemote, with which he always discussed the affairs of the 
nation. What was the composition of this assembly, at which 
prelates, earls or aldermen, thanes or barons, and perhaps depu- 
ties from different burghs, or associations of free men, were pre- 
sent, has been, and will, probably, remain, a subject of contro- 
versy. 

According to the principles and customs of the northern na- 
tions, every free man had, as matter of course, a share in the 
sovereignty! but by far the greater part of the population were 
without either power or freedom. The ceorls, kerls, churls, or 
in Roman phrase, vileins, were held by their lords in a state of 
vassalage which amounted to almost absolute dependency; lower 
still, the bond-slaves or serfs were not masters even of their own 
persons. Neither class w^as supposed to have any rights as citi- 
zens, nor any voice in public affairs: neither could be represent- 
ed in parliament. 

Alfred caused a fresh publication of the Saxon laws. This 
collection contained those of Ina, king of Wessex, OfFa, king of 
Mercia, Ethelbert, king of Kent| to these he added about forty 
others, framed or sanctioned by himself. Like the Carlovingian 
kings, he inserted several laws taken from the Judaical ritual 
into his statutes, as if to give new strength and cogency to the 
precepts of morality. The Saxon laws, like those of all the peo- 
ple of the North, established the compensation of crimes or of- 
ences by pecuniary mulct, according to a regulated scale. The 
English are also fond of tracing in them the first indications of 
the glory of their island — trial by jury. 

The judges underwent at the same time a severe reform. It is 
difficult to see how the state of dependence on the monarch, to 
which Alfred reduced this order of men, could be reconciled 
with liberty. We are only told that Alfred hanged forty -four of 
them in one year for crimes of malversation. 

The division of England into counties or shires, (i. e. shares,) 
appears to have been one of the first acts of the Saxons after 
their conquest. This was, indeed, but a transplantation of Ger- 
manic institutions into their adopted country. The counts or 
earls, civil or military officers holding under the king, and pre- 
siding over the shire meetings, are mentioned from the very ear- 
liest times of the Heptarchy. Alfred, however, reformed the 



CHAP. XXI.3 Alfred's learning^ 42S 

division of the counties, and made it more regular and equable 
throughout the kingdom. For the government of them he asso- 
ciated another officer to the earl, called tlie sheriff, or shire- 
reeve, often mentioned under the title of viscount. He con- 
firmed and cemented the system of corporations, which placed 
all the citizens, in their several relations to society^ reciprocally 
under the guarantee of each other, by forming a burgh or asso- 
ciation of ten free householders, with a tithing man at their head; 
and uniting ten of these associations into a hundred, under ano- 
ther head; and all the hundreds of each county under its respec- 
tive earl. Each of these bodies was responsible for the conduct 
of all its members, and, in virtue of this responsibility, exercised 
over them a right of inspection and of police; but if the crimi- 
nal was not discovered, the responsibility fell on the association 
of the superior degree. The king demanded an account of every 
breach of the peace, first, of the tithing; next, of the hundred; 
and, in the last resort, of the county. The universal disorga- 
nization of society — the infinite number of robbers and outlaws 
who infested all parts of the kingdom — had compelled Alfred to 
adopt this rigorous system of police; but even in its vigilance 
we recognise respect for the rights of freemen. It was not a 
system under which magistrates, the creatures of despotic power, 
ruled their inferiors: equals exercised a supervision over equals, 
and public order was committed to the maintenance of the ci- 
tizens. 

The cultivation of letters, which had been absolutely destroyed 
at the first invasion of the Saxons, and had since made but few 
and languid steps towards revival, was the object of Alfred's 
peculiar care. He complained, that, from the Thames to the 
Humber, there was not a priest who understood the service he 
had to recite; and from the Thames to the sea — the part of the 
kingdom in which letters were a little more cultivated — there 
was not one who could translate the easiest Latin book into 
Saxon. Alfred was very superior to his clergy in erudition, and 
understood well the ancient language used by the church; but 
he had the good sense and good taste to wish to cultivate the 
vernacular tongue. He, therefore, applied himself to the trans- 
lation of several books into Saxon: among them are ** Boethius, 
De Consolatione Philosophise;" and the Ecclesiastical History of 
the Venerable Bede, a Saxon author of the early part of the 
eighth century. Alfred likewise founded schools at Oxford, 



424 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXI. 

which are regarded as the first origin of that celebrated univer- 
sity. He invited from all parts of Europe, the learned men 
whom he thought best qualified to train and instruct youth; and 
he set aside a considerable portion of the revenues of his domains 
for the payment of their salaries, or the maintenance of poor 
scholars who followed their teaching. 

After having thus gloriously devoted his life to the defence, 
the deliverance, the improvement, and the prosperity of his coun- 
try, Alfred died in the year 900, at the age of fifty-two, after a 
reign of twenty- eight years and a half. Nor can we discover in 
his character or conduct, as delineated by writers who have 
handed down to us tolerably copious details of his life, a vice, or 
even a fault, which can stain or sully so pure, so lofty, so spot- 
less a reputation. 



( 425 J 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Historical Darkness of the tenth Century. — Decline of the Khaliphate of 
Bag-dad. — Introduction of the Turks. — Creation of the office of Emir al 
Omara. — Greek Empire. — Macedonian Dynasty. — Basil I. — Assassination 

of Michael III. — Compilation of the Basilica. — Leo the Philosopher. 

Constantine Porphyrogenitus. — His Works. — Refusal of the Greek Em- 
perors to acknowledge those of the West, — Bereng-er King- of Italy. 

His Murder. — Independence of Itahan Nobles. — Rudolf 11. of Burg-undy. 
— Hug-ues Count of Provence. — Surrender of Lombardy to Otlio the 
Great. — Cliarles the Simple crowned King- of France. — Insubordination 

of the great Nobles. — Robert, Count of Paris and Duke of France His 

Revolt and Death. — Rudolf of Burgundy. — Betrayal, Imprisonment, and 
Death of Charles the Simple. — Cession of Neustria to the Normans. — 
Baptism and Marriage of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy. — Introduction 
of the Feudal System into Normandy. — Rigorous Justice of Rollo. — Ra- 
pid Disappearance of the Norse Tongue. — Cessation of predatory Habits. 
— Saracen Settlements in France and Italy. — Irruption of the Magyars. — 
Emperor Arnulf — Louis IV. — Increased Power of German Nobles. — 
Charles the Simple, last of the illegitimate Carlovingians. — Emperor 
Conrad of Franconia succeeded by Henry of Saxony. — His Ability and 
Bravery. — His total Defeat of the Hungarians, a. d. 900 — 936. 

The history of the tenth century, a brief survey of which we 
are now about to lay before our readers, is far more difficult to 
reduce to any general character, or to present under any general 
point of view, than any of the preceding. If we cast our eyes 
over the whole theatre of the world, we find neither a great em- 
pire influencing its neighbours, and giving a sort of unity to con- 
temporaneous history, nor a great simultaneous movement in the 
minds of men. On every side, states seem to be falling into dis- 
solutionj on every side, portions are detaching themselves from 
the mass; dependants or subordinates are throwing off their al- 
legiance to their superiors. Kings no longer do homage to the 
emperor as their liege lord; emirs disclaim the authority of the 
khaliph; dukes and counts declare themselves independent of 
kings; cities and lords of burghs or castles shut their gates 
against dukes and counts. Where we have hitherto seen only 
the impulse communicated to the several members of one great 
body, we now remark convulsive movements which are clearly 
not directed by its will. 

It is difficult to distinguish whether it was only a passive re- 
sistance that nations opposed to their governments, or whether 



426 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XXII. 

we can trace the development of a new and active willj nor can 
we gather any light on this matter from the contemporary histo- 
rians. Almost all the annals of the foregoing periods close; al- 
most all the chroniclers desert us; scarcely can an age be men- 
tioned more barren in historical documents. 

Yet were it a mistake to conclude that Europe was retrograding 
towards barbarism. There was, on the contrary, an important 
progress in manners, institutions, intelligence, and population. 
But the same difficulty in gaining any general views of the his- 
tory of the period, which we of the present day feel, was still 
more insurmountable to contemporaries. Those who had the ta- 
lent of writing (and there were several) could not succeed in ob- 
taining information as to what was passing among their neigh- 
bours, — so scanty and interrupted were the means of communi- 
cation; and, on the other hand, the rise of provincial dynasties, 
or of free communities, was still too recent for them to assume 
the rank of subjects worthy the dignity of history. Historians 
still turned their eyes towards the Empire, which had ceased to 
exist; and overlooked those infant states which had hardly strug- 
gled into existence. We shall turn our attention successively to 
all the portions of this system of the world, whose rise and pro- 
gress we have hitherto watched. 

"We shall not, however, endeavour to follow out the decline of 
the empire of the khaliphs. The frequent revolutions of the 
throne of Bagdad ceased to have any influence on the rest of the 
world; in each successive reign, some province detached itself 
from the ancient monarchy, some new dynasty sprang into exis- 
tence, and some fresh matter was afforded for what Orientals 
take for history, — namely, the chronology of princes. To them, 
indeed, it is but an index to the parricides and fratricides of each 
reign, or to battles followed by the desolation of certain provinces; 
without the slightest advancement in the human species towards 
a better government, towards a stronger guarentee for its rights, 
towards a greater development of its faculties. 

The loading the memory with the names of a host of princes, 
to which not a single useful or interesting idea can be attached, 
is but a waste of time and an abuse of learning. One remarkable 
change only, connected with the decline of these sovereigns of 
Bagdad, who daily saw new provinces escape from their gra&p, 
deserves a cursory mention. They had remarked the decline of 
enthusiasm, the falling off in the courage, and even of the bodily 



CHAP. XXII.] DECLINE OF THE KHALIFHATE. 427 

strength, of their own subjects, from the time that all noble ob- 
jects had ceased to be presented to their ambition or their activity. 
Motassem, the twenty- seventh khaliph, who died in 842, had en- 
deavoured to supply this want, by sending to Turkestan to pur- 
chase young slaves bred in the mountain region of Caucasus, 
whom he trained to the profession of arms, and formed into a 
guard, to which he intrusted the protection of his palace. These 
troops soon became numerous and formidable^ the rivalry which 
existed between them and the Syrians effectually disgusted the 
latter with the military career, and the Turks were soon the only 
soldiers of the khaliphs. The slavery in which they had been 
reared rendered them less faithful, without being more submissive 
or obedient. From this time, most of the revolutions in Syria 
were their work. They hurled from the throne, or they assassi- 
nated, those khaliphs who were not the obsequious tools of their 
insolence and rapacity. At length, in the year 936, in the reign 
of Radhi, the thirty-ninth khaliph, they elected a chief of their own 
body, whom they called Emir al Omara (or Chief of Chiefs:) this 
officer was henceforward the true sovereign of the state; he alone 
disposed of the treasure, the troops, the offices of power or dignity; 
he kept the khaliph a prisoner in his own palace — reducing him 
to that life of poverty, penitence, and prayer, which the early 
successors of Mahoramed had imposed on themselves by choice: 
nor did he even respect his life, if there was any caprice of the 
chief or of the soldiers which the commander of the faithful 
found it impossible to gratify. The Emir al Omara of Bagdad 
has sometimes been compared to the maire du palais, who was 
the virtual ruler of France under the kings of the first race. 
The origin of the power of the two officers was, however, very 
different, and its abuse was more violent and more cruel on the 
part of the Turk than on that of the Austrasian; though the thral - 
dom of the legitimate sovereign to his minister presents some fea- 
tures of resemblance. 

We shall also bestow but a transitory glance on the empire of 
the East, which was daily becoming more wholly separated from 
our portion of Europe; daily forgetting more and more that Latin 
world by which it was daily more and more forgotten. The 
people who inherited the two illustrious names of Greek and Ro- 
man had preserved no vestige of the sentiments or character of 
Greece and of Rome. The living generation seemed to be con- 
scious that it was not worthy to occupy the attention of posterity; 



428 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. fcHAP. XXlI. 

and though it continued to study the works of the mighty and 
illustrious dead,- it neglected to leave any record of present 
events. Yet the empire had acquired some fresh vigour from the 
accession of the Macedonian dynasty to the throne. Basil, thfe 
founder of that dynasty, v\^as invested with the purple on the 24th 
of September, 867; he reigned until 886. He was succeeded by 
his son, Leo the Philosopher, who reigned from 886 to 911; and 
his grandson, Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus, from 911 to 959. 
The former merited some reputation as a legislator; the second 
and the third distinguished themselves as writers. 

Basil pretended to be a descendant of the Arsacides of Arme- 
nia, and to be allied, through his wife, to the line of the ancient 
kings of Macedonia. Nevertheless, his family had been reduced 
by the ravages of the Bulgarians to great poverty: nor had he 
owed his rise from among the servants of the imperial palace to 
any qualities more elevated than his address in training horses, 
his physical strength, and his courage. But in despotic govern- 
ments, where the monarch alone has the power of distinguishing 
or rewarding merit, and where public opinion is mute, a valet, 
having nearer access to his sovereign, has a greater chance of ob- 
taining influence than the governor of a province; and domestic 
services are often the road to the highest dignities. Basil made 
his way from the stable to the council of state. The more sur- 
prising fact is, that he was worthy of his elevation. Michael III., 
son of Theophilus, at length granted him the title of Augustus. 
The favour of a prince addicted to every possible vice could be 
no recommendation: the assassination of this same prince by Basil, 
who owed his elevation entirely to him, threw the stain of ingra- 
titude over the character of the new sovereign. Yet no sooner 
was Basil seated on the tiirone, than he merited the respect and 
attachment of his subjects by his application to business, by the 
vigour of his judgment, by the order which he established in the 
finances and in the administration of the empire. He even found 
means to reorganize the army, although he had not received a 
military education. The Musulmans no longer menaced the 
provinces of the Levant: the Bulgarians, at the same epoch, had 
become converts to Christianity, and had laid aside their fierce 
and warlike habits with their idolatry. From this time their 
monarchy continued to decline, so that the Thracian provinces 
of the empire enjoyed an unwonted repose, repaired their losses, 
and, under Basil's fostering care, agriculture and commerce 



CHAP. XXII.] WESTERN EMPIRE. 429 

flaurished anew. He took advantage of the civil wars which 
distracted the Western empire, and the divisions of the Lombards 
of Benevento, to make new conquests in southern Italy. The 
Calabrias and Puglia submitted to his authority; and the city of 
Bari, the residence of a governer named the Captain, was the 
capital of the province which the Greeks called the Theme of 
Lombardy. The Latin tongue, though entirely disused in the 
East for every other purpose, still remained that of the laws. 
Already, it is true, the Novels, or the edicts of the emperors, pos- 
terior to the publication of Justinian's Code, were published in 
Greek as well as in Latin. Basil thought it was time for the go- 
vernment to drop a language which was not understood by its 
subjects. He caused a new compilation of the laws of the em- 
pire to be made in Greek: they were divided into forty books, 
called the Basilica. This code he substituted for that of Jus- 
tinian, and it continued in force throughout the empire up to the 
period of its fall. The Greeks, indeed, continued to regard it as 
the rule of their actions even after they fell under the yoke of 
the Turks, 

Tiie reign of Leo, son of Basil, and pupil of the patriarch 
Photius, is scarcely marked by any event save his disputes with 
his clergy on the subject of his last marriage: it was the fourth, 
and the Greek church did not permit any man to marry more than 
thrice. He owed the title of Philosopher to several works com- 
posed by him, or, at any rate, under his name, on most of the 
sciences cultivated by the ancient Greeks. His son Constan tine 
Porphyrogenitus, who was scarcely six years old when he suc- 
ceeded him, was governed, first by guardians, and then by col- 
leagues, who seized the purple by violence. Estranged from 
the business of the state, and almost a prisoner in his palace, no 
less from the weakness of his health than from the distrust of Ro- 
manus Lecapenus, whom the army had elected as his associate, 
he devoted all his time to literature and art; and his voluminous 
compilations may be regarded as the depositary of almost all the 
Greek learning and science of his time. We may infer from his 
works, that if they were still in possession of the discoveries of 
th^ir ancestors, they had lost all original genius, all fertility of 
invention, all power of observation. 

While the new empire of the West was at the summit of its 
power under Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire, the Eastern 
emperors had not disdained to recognise them as colleagues. 

55 



430 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [^CHAP. XXII. 

But the greatness of the Carlovingian house had been of short 
duration; and Basil the Macedonian disputed the claim of Louis 
II., son of Lothaire, and sovereign of Italy, to the title of em- 
peror, which his power no longer seemed to justify. The suc- 
cessors of Louis appeared to the Greeks still less worthy to be 
compared to their monarchs. A question of this nature is dif&- 
cult to decide, where it is impossible to point out what are the 
real grounds of pre-eminence. The Latin emperor differed in 
nothing from the other kings of his race: he had no authority 
over them, though he assumed superiority of rank; nor is it easy 
to say what constituted an emperor, unless it were the fact of 
having placed on his head the crown of gold which the pope kept 
at Rome. This crown was granted successively, in 891, to Guide 
duke of Spoleto, and his son Lambert; in 895, to Arnulf king 
of Germany; in 900, to Louis, son of Boson, king of Provence; 
and, in 915, to Berenger, duke of Friuli and king of Italy. 
Each of these coronations had been the consequence of the ar- 
rival of a monarch at Rome at the head of an army. The popes 
had shown but slight repugnance to sanction what force had 
gained. Rapid revolutions had repeatedly changed the sove- 
reignty of Italy. They were universally attributed to the jea- 
lousy which the high aristocracy felt of royal power. Of the 
three grand divisions of the empire of the Carlovingians — Italy, 
Gaul, and Germany — the former was the one in which the dukes, 
the governors of provinces, and the leaders of armies, were the 
most influential. From the times of the Lombard conquerors, 
they had perpetuated their dignities in their families; they were, 
in fact, become petty sovereigns; they had considerable revenues, 
and devoted soldiers; their fiefs were of great extent, and the 
population on them was once more become considerable: they 
knew that emperors and kings regarded them with jealousy; and, 
in order to limit the power of the throne, their constant policy 
had been to divide their suffrages between the two competitors, 
that the actual sovereign, seeing himself threatened by a rival, 
might always feel the necessity of buying their support by the 
concession of new privileges. 

Berenger, duke of Friuli, proclaimed king of Italy in 888, and 
emperor in 915, had worn the Italian crown for sixteen years 
without a rival. In the year 905, he took the emperor Louis of 
Provence prisoner; and as a punishment for the violation of a 
preceding treaty by that prince, he had caused his eyes to be put 



CHAP. XXII.] KINGDOM OF FRANCE. 431 

out,' after which he sent him back to his kingdom of Provence, 
which Louis, now surnamed the Blind, governed for eio-hteen 
years. Berenger, notwithstanding this act of inhumanly rigid 
justice, had been much more frequently distinguished for his 
magnanimity and his forgiveness of injuries than for his severity. 
Of all the princes who had risen on the ruins of the throne of 
the Carlovingians, he was the one who had merited in the highest 
degree the respect and the love of his subjects. He had re- 
awakened the military spirit of his kingdom, and had displayed 
no less talent for civil administration than for war. Lastly, he 
had shown those private virtu es,--that generosity, that frankness, 
that confidence in the loyalty and honour of others, — which win 
the heart and elevate the soul of all who come under their influ- 
ence. But the turbulent nobles of Italy, always jealous of the 
royal authority, dreaded the loss of their privileges, if they had 
to defend them against a king who possessed the affections of 
his people. They looked out for a rival among the Frankic 
princes^ they offered the crown to Rudolf II. king of Transju- 
rane Burgundy, who, for about two years, (from 923 to 925,) 
united the government of Italy to that of Switzerland. The ci- 
vil wars they stirred up, laid open their country to the ravages of 
the Hungarians. Berenger defeated both his barbarian invaders 
and his rivals; but it was only to fall under the dagger of an as- 
sassin armed by the same faction. Rudolf II. was very soon 
abandoned by those who had invited him. Hugh, count of Pro- 
vence, was raised to the throne, in his place, in 926. For half a 
century, Italy had been a prey to factions which were not ani- 
mated by any true spirit of liberty; they sprang rather from the 
ambition of haughty nobles who could not brook submission to 
any regular government, and who preferred a foreign monarch 
solely because he was farther from them. At length, fatigued 
and exhausted by their animosities and struggles, she yielded 
herself up, though unconquered, as a dependency of the crown 
of Germany. The submission of the kingdom of Lombardy to 
Otho the Great was not the consequence of weakness, or of want 
of courage in the soldiery; still less was it the result of any 
claim which the Saxon monarch could establish to the crown. 
It was the fatal effect of the independence to which the high aris- 
tocracy had attained in this country, above any other; the effect 
of the greatness, the power, and the ambition of such nobles as 
the marquesses of Tuscany, the dukes of Spoleto and Friuli, the 



432 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXII. 

marquesses of Ivrea, and other great lords, who sacrificed the 
independence of their country to jealousy of their countrymen, 
and to the desire of concealing their encroachments from the 
monarch, whom it was therefore incoiivenient to have near at 
hand. 

The second of the countries detached from the Western em- 
pire — Gaul, or France — was that of which, in the tenth century, 
the strength was the most completely broken, the European im- 
portance the most completely destroyed. After the death of 
king Eutles, count of Paris, the crown had been restored to 
Charles, the posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer. He was 
anointed and crowned at Rheims, with the consent of the nobles 
of Neustria, at the beginning of the year 898^ but if, on the one 
side, the people saw with pleasure the sole offspring of the house 
of Charlemagne seated on the throne of his ancestors^ on the 
other, their attachment was soon cooled by the profound incapa- 
city of this young man, to whom they gave the surname of the 
Simple. Incapable of conducting himself, or of distinguishing 
friends from enemies, he fell into the hands of successive favour- 
ites, whom chance brought around his person, and who used his 
name as a cover for their own acts of injustice and oppression. 
A man of low birth, named Haganon, who had gained his confi- 
dence, e?:cited the special resentment of the Franks by his im- 
prudent rapacity^ and, in the end, occasioned the ruin of his 
master. 

The authority of Charles was already greatly circumscribed. 
Not only did four other princes in Gaul, besides himself, bear 
the title of king, — those of Lorraine, Transjurane Burgundy, 
Provence, and Bretagne,' but even in his kingdoms of Aquitaine 
and of Neustria, puissant dukes and counts — those of Burgun- 
dy, Toulouse, Vermandois, Poictiers, and Aquitaine — governed 
their dominions with absolute independence, and scarcely gave 
any other mark of deference to the crown, than that of inscribing 
in their acts the year of the reign of Charles the Simple. The 
feudatories south of the Loire were almost forgotten by the king, 
and he hardly found occasion to remark that they had ceased to 
obey him^ but the insubordination of the count of Paris, who, 
in his reign, also assumed the title of duke of France, caused 
him more uneasiness. The house of the counts of Paris owed 
its greatness to Charles the Bald, who, as a recompense to Ro- 
bert the Strong for the assistance he had aiforded him, gave him 



CHAP. XXIT.] CHARLES THE SIMPLE. 453 

the government of Paris and of the country situated between 
the Seine and the Loire. A Capitulary, published towards the 
end of Charles's reign, had rendered this government, like all 
the others, hereditary. During the disorders which reigned at 
the end of the ninth century, the provincial authority of these 
counts had increased, while that of the king had diminished. At 
the deposition of Charles the Fat, Eudes, the son of count Ro- 
bert, had assumed the title of king. During his reign he 
strengthened and extended the hereditary domain of his family; 
and when, upon the death of Eudes, the crown of France re- 
verted to the Carlovingian line, in the person of Charles the 
Simple, the real sovereignty, the substantial power, continued in 
the hands of Robert duke of France, the brother of Eudes; and 
of his son, Hugh the Great, count of Paris. Charles, who per- 
ceived that they were absolute masters in the kingdom which 
was called his, abandoned his residence in their fiefs, where he 
felt himself an inferior and a dependant. The city of Laon was 
almost the only one the government of which had not been be- 
stowed on some count: thither he removed his court and his seat 
of government; and his son and grandson, who reigned after 
him, scarcely ever went beyond the bounds of the Laonnais. 

Whatever was the incapacity of Charles the Simple, whatever 
wrongs of commission or of omission he might have to answer to 
his immediate vassals, his share in the general government of the 
kingdom was so small, his authority was so little felt or regarded 
by the great nobles, that they might safely have allowed him to 
retain, to the end of his life, a title of which he could make no bad 
use. But at the same time that they had stripped him of all real 
power or efficiency, they expressed astonishment that he did not 
protect his kingdom as vigorously as the most puissant and glo- 
rious of his ancestors could have done; they accused him of abuses 
to which he was a stranger; they reproached him with hostile in- 
vasions which they would not furnish him troops to repel. An 
assembly of nobles, held at Soissons in 920, resolved to depose 
him; and the lords, using a symbolical custom taken from the 
newly created feudal system, broke straws and threw them in the 
air in his presence; thus declaring that they renounced their alle- 
giance to him. The expression, rompre lapaille, borrowed from 
this ceremony, and signifying, openly to renounce all friendship 
with any one, has remained in use to the present day. In spite 
of this violent proceeding, Charles the Simple continued to reign 



434 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [OHAP. XXII. 

for nearly three years longer: the nobles, who were scarcely con- 
scious of his existence, took little trouble to complete his down- 
fal. It was not till he offended duke Robert by an act of private 
injustice, — the usurpation of an ecclesiastical benefice which he 
endeavoured to dispose of to the count's prejudice, — that his puis- 
sant vassal took arms against him, and caused himself to be 
crowned at Rheims, at the end of June, 922. Less than a year 
afterwards — on the 15th of June, 923 — Robert was killed in a 
battle fought against Charles the Simple, between Soissons and 
St. Medard. 

But the malecontent party were not disheartened by the loss of 
their leader. They offered the crown to duke Rudolf of Bur- 
gundy, who actually wore it from 923 to 936, though he scarcely 
ever quitted his hereditary fief, or took any share in the govern- 
ment of France. He abandoned all that still remained of the royal 
power to Hugues le Blanc, count of Paris, and son of Robert; 
while Charles the Simple, betrayed by Heribert count of Ver- 
mandois, to whom he had intrusted his personal safety, was ar- 
rested at Peronne, and conveyed to Chateau Thierry, where he 
was kept prisoner more than five years, till, on the 7th of Octo- 
ber, 929, he died. 

During this period, which we designate as the reign of Charles 
the Simple, though he had so small a share in the events by which 
it was marked; whilst the sovereign authority was in abeyance — 
residing neither in the king, nor in the national assemblies, which 
were no longer convoked; whilst France was but a formless col- 
lection of independent sovereignties, slightly and imperfectly 
bound together by a feeble federative system — having neither 
laws whose authority they equally recognised, nor a uniform sys- 
tem of procedure, nor a common treasury, nor a common army, 
nor a general currency; one single event of real importance oc- 
curred. This was the final settlement of the Northmen in that 
part of Neustria, which received from them the name of Norman- 
dy; an event which changed the most formidable enemies of France 
into the best and bravest of her citizens. 

Among the Norse chiefs, one of the most formidable was Rou, 
or Rollo, who, in the year 876, had performed his first feats of 
arms in France with the fierce comrades of his enterprise; and 
who, from that time alternately falling upon Neustria, Aquitaine, 
Lorraine, and England, had made himself the terror of the West, 
the idol of his northern comrades, and at length the supreme 



CHAP. XXII.] SETTLEMENT OF THE NORMANS. 435 

commander of their armies. In 911, quitting the shores of Eng- 
land with a formidable fleet, he ascended the Seine, and laid siege 
to Paris. This aggression was suspended by a three months' truce, 
which Charles the Simple obtained from him by the aid of gold. 
But scarcely had this period elapsed, when Rollo began to lay 
waste the provinces with unheard-of cruelty, burning churches, 
massacring priests, and exterminating the whole population, ex- 
cepting the women, whom he led away captive. The king, who 
had no troops to oppose to him, sent the archbishop of Rouen, 
named Franke or Francon, to offer to cede to him a vast province 
of France, in which he and his warriors might establish them- 
selves; if, at this price, he would abstain from ravaging the rest 
of the kingdom, and acknowledge the sovereignty of the crown 
of France. Rollo appeared tempted by these offers; and an ar- 
mistice was concluded in the year 911, between the French and 
the Normans, to allow time for settling the terms of the approach- 
ing treaty. The first exacted by the bishops who were in- 
trusted with the negotiation was, that Rollo and his soldiers 
should make a public profession of Christianity. The conver- 
sion of an army and a people who had so long distinguished them- 
selves by their furious hostility to the churches and the ministers 
of the Christian religion, did not present the difficulties that 
might have been anticipated. For near a century the Normans had 
been living among the Christians of France or of England, and had 
lost sight of their own priests and the temples of their fathers' gods. 
They regarded Christianity as the religion of civilization. Several 
of their chiefs had successively embraced it, when Louis le Debon- 
naire and his successors had offered them lands in Friesland and 
on the Rhine, on that condition. Alfred the Great had found 
equal pliancy among the Danes, to whom he had granted settle- 
ments in East Anglia and Northumberland. This primary con- 
dition once agreed upon, Charles showed great facility as to all 
others. He gave his own daughter Gisele to Rollo in marriage; 
and ceded to him and his followers the whole province which still 
bears their name, from the river Epte, which falls into the Seine 
below Rocheguyon, to the sea. And as this region had been 
rendered completely desert by the ravages of the Normans; as all 
traces of agriculture had disappeared, and forests had covered 
the deserted fields; Charles compelled Berenger count of Rennes, 
and Alain count of Dol, to bind themselves to furnish, provi- 
sions for the Normans. It appears that, at the same time, he 



436 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXH. 

ceded to these nobles all the claims of the crown over that part 
of Britany which no longer acknowledged its allegiance to the 
king of France. 

After the conditions of the establishment of the Normans in 
maritime Neustria were settled, king Charles, accompanied by 
Robert count of Paris and duke of France, repaired to a place 
named St. Clair, on the left bank of the Epte^ whilst RoUo, sur- 
rounded by his soldiers, appeared on the right. Peace was then 
confirmed by mutual oaths. RoUo swore fidelity to king Charles, 
who, in return, committed his daughter to his hands, and invested 
him with the duchy of Normandy. The bishops then told RoUo 
that he could not receive a gift of such price, without, in return, 
kissing the king's feet. We find that these servile forms, so alien 
from the manners of northern barbarians, were invariably ingraft- 
ed on feudality by the priests. They had transplanted them 
from the courts of Eastern despots to their own church, whence 
they taught them again to the kings of the West. It is difficult 
to say whether this was the result of mere habit, or whether they 
took a delight in humbling the secular grandees who disputed 
with them the highest rank in the state. " Never," replied Rollo, 
"will I bend my knees before any man 5 never will I kiss the 
foot of any mortal being!" As, however, the bishops continued 
to urge him, he ordered one of his soldiers to kiss the king's foot 
in his stead. Tiie soldier instead of stooping down to the king's 
foot, raised it to his own mouthy and that in so ungentle a man- 
ner, that he threw the king down backward.* The Normans 
hailed this affront to royalty with shouts of laughter. The as- 
sembled people were thrown into a state of agitation and alarm, 
as if it were the prelude to another attack. Charles's nobles 
thought it more prudent to disguise their resentment, and the ce- 
remony continued. The nobles were called in turn, after the 
king and duke Robert, to swear to guaranty to Rollo and his 
successors, from generation to generation, the possession of the 
lands ceded to him. The counts, courtiers, bishops, and abbots, 
all took the oath; after which the king returned into France, 
and Rollo, accompanied by duke Robert, set out for Rouen. 

Robert duke of France had been the mediator and the pacifi- 

* Robert Wace, a poet conteraporaiy with Henry I., and author of the 
Romount de Rou (Rollo,) says nothing- of this somewhat rough practical joke 
being performed by deputy. According- to him, it was the Norse hero him- 
self who was g-uilty of the irreverence. — TransL 



CHAP. XXII.] CESSATION OF BARBARIAN INVASIONS. 439 

had not passed away before the Romanz French was become their 
mother-tongue. But the j infused into this language that life and en- 
ergy which inspired all they did, and which they had likewise com- 
municated to the military discipline of France. The rustic Ro- 
man, the patois which ignorance had formed out of corrupt Latin, 
became, in the hands of the Normans, a regular written language, 
well adapted for every purpose of legislation or of poetry. One 
century only had elapsed when they employed it for a code of 
laws, or a romance of chivalry.* They were the first of the 
French nation who did so employ itj and the Romanz poetry re- 
ceived from them its wild and daring character and its aptitude 
for works of imagination. 

Other princes had already tried in Germany, in France, and 
in England, to reclaim the Northmen from their predatory habits, 
and allure them to agricultural life, by giving up to them a pro- 
vince where they were permitted to live under their own chiefs 
and their own laws. But the moment for this conversion had 
not as yet arrived. In every case they had abandoned their new 
colonies after a few years, and returned to their wild and adven- 
turous life, which they regarded as at once more glorious and 
more agreeable. The change which had taken place in two essen- 
tial points, determined the followers of Rollo to adopt the habits of 
civilized life with earnestness and perseverance. These were, 
first, the desolation of the country lying along the shores of the 
British Channel j and, secondly, the independence of the feudal 
lords, and the resistance they began to oppose in each province. 
When the Normans made a descent on a point of the coast, far 
from being sure of finding booty wherewith to load their barks, 
they now often found it difficult to collect provisions enough for 
their subsistence, and were forced to plunge into the depths of 
forests which had grown up in these depopulated regions, or into 
tracts of marshes formed by rivers wliich had been let to over- 
flow their banks^ to approach mountains, every defile of which 

* The rapid disappearance of the lang'uag-e of the conquerors is one of the 
most singular facts in history. Wace says that Louis d'Outremer sent to 
Willeaume Longue-Espee an ambassador named Cosne, who knew how to 
speak " Thioiz " (Teutsch) and " Normant," William Longsword, though 
the son and successor of Rollo, was obliged to send his son, duke Richard 
I., to Bayeux to learn Norse. ** Richard," says Wace, recapitulating his ac- 
complishments, could speak '* Daneiz et Normant." — Transl 



440 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXII. 

might conceal an ambuscade; and, as local authorities had univer- 
sally taken the place of a central administration, there was not 
a province where they did not encounter a chieftain interested 
in repelling or cutting them off, and bands of peasants whom de- 
spair had driven to take up arms, and flock to his standard. The 
plunder had become both too poor and too dearly purchased; and 
the Normans had begun to perceive that less toil would suffice 
to put them in possession of the riches which lay hidden in the 
soil of Normandy, than to pursue what remained in the hands of 
the peasants of Burgundy through such formidable obstacles, and 
such incessant contests. 

The same causes operated, more slowly, perhaps, on the two 
other piratical nations, who at the same time devastated the West- 
ern empire: but they did operate; and towards the end of the 
tenth century their invasions ceased altogether. The Saracens 
did not content themselves with occasional descents on the 
coasts; they had established colonies on the Continent, whence 
they extended their ravages far and wide. The principal of 
these were in Campania, Puglia, Calabria, and in Provence. 
The place which was for the longest time the centre of their de- 
predations was their colony of Frainer or Frassineto, near Fre- 
jus. Twenty Spanish Saracens were driven on these shores by 
a tempest: finding a good landing-place at the foot of Monte 
Moro, and impervious forests all around, they established them- 
selves there, and invited their countrymen to join them. At 
first they hired themselves to Provencal nobles, who hated each 
other, and, without courage to make war in their own persons, 
were glad to avail themselves of any instruments of mutual ag- 
gression. When, however, the Saracens had become more pow- 
erful, or more secure in the cowardice of their neighbours, they 
carried their devastations on the one hand into Provence, on the 
other into Italy. 

It was, doubtless, by taking advantage of the feuds between 
the neighbouring kings and nobles that the Saracens ventured to 
cross their frontiers on either hand, to follow the line of the Alps 
to a considerable distance from the sea, and at last to fix them- 
selves in the country the least fitted by its climate, its defensible 
character, and the ruggedness of its mountains, for the wander- 
ing tribes of Africa. During the first half of the tenth century 
we find frequent mention of the Saracens, who were masters of 
the pass of St. Maurice in the Valais. At a later period they 



CHAP. XXII.] BAPTISM OF ROLLO. 437 

cator of the Normans, and was, therefore, chosen as the sponsor 
of the new convert. Rollo was presented at the font bj the 
duke, who gave him his name, and was baptized by Francon, 
archbishop of Rouen, in the cathedral church of that city, (a. d. 
912.) During the seven days that he wore the white robe of a 
catechumen, the bishops who instructed him in the articles of 
his new faith, induced him every day to grant some fresh portion 
of land to some church in Normandy. These were his first in- 
feudations. As soon as he had received baptism, he divided the 
rest of his duchy among the officers of his army. Each of these 
districts received the appellation of county {comte;) and the Nor- 
man chief to whom it was granted, in his turn, partitioned it 
among his soldiers. The feudal system had slowly gained 
ground in the rest of Europe; the reciprocal duties of lord and 
vassal had begun to be regulated by custom; the authority of the 
counts, who represented the king, had ceased to be in opposition 
with that of the lords of the soil; the functions of the niissi da- 
minici had fallen into desuetude; the different tenures of land, 
after causing extreme confusion, also began to fall under some 
classification. By introducing into Normandy the feudal system 
full grown and complete; by taking advantage of all the lights 
which experience, up to that time, had furnished; by giving a si- 
milar origin to all property, Rollo had it in his power to secure 
to the legislation of his country, a regularity which it had no- 
where as yet attained to; and this province, the most recently 
constituted, soon served as a model to all the others. 

This nation of warriors now set themselves to the cultivation 
of the land with the same ardour and energy with which they 
had heretofore ravaged it. Foreigners from all countries were 
invited to come and establish themselves in Normandy: rigorous 
laws were promulgated, and were no less rigorously enforced, 
for the protection of property; all thieves or robbers were pu- 
nished with death; and, from a sort of bravado, Rollo hung a 
pair of bracelets of massive gold from the branches of an oak 
near the Seine, where they remained three years untouched. 
The new duke also rebuilt the churches his countrymen had de- 
stroyed; he surrounded the cities with walls, he closed the 
mouths of rivers with barricades, and put himself in a state of 
defence against new pirates who might be inclined to follow the 
track he had traced out for them. Sensible, however, that forti- 
fications cannot protect a nation without the bravery of its sol- 

56 



438 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXII. 

diers, he maintained war on his frontiers in order to keep up the 
military dispositions and habits of his people. He could not, 
conformably with his treaty, turn his arms against the French; 
he, therefore, attacked Gurmhaillon, count of Cornwall, who, in 
the year 907, had succeeded to Alwin the Great in the sove- 
reignty of Britany. He defeated him in several engagements, 
and forced the Bretons at length to submit to a foreign yoke. 

The conversion of duke Rollo, and his settlement, with his 
Norman followers, in that part of maritime Neustria which bears 
their name, is unquestionably the most remarkable event which 
occurs in the history of France during the tenth century, — the 
event followed by the most important and the most lasting con- 
sequences. It put an end to that war of devastation and of pil- 
lage which, during a whole century, had depopulated western 
Germany, Belgium, Gaul, and England. It enabled those 
countries to return to the cultivation of their deserted fields, to 
apply themselves once more to the arts of peace, to rebuild their 
ruined temples, and to restore the shattered defences of their 
towns. Above all, it remodelled the national character. The 
mixture of another race, vigorous, enterprising, and intrepid, in- 
fused among them that spirit of adventure which always distin- 
guished the Normans, from the shores of their native Baltic to 
their latest conquests in Sicily or the principality of Edessa, 
which they won during the crusades. 

The mother-tongue of the Normans, Danish, or more properly 
Norse, was only a dialect of that great Teutonic language spread 
over the whole of Germania, another dialect of which was spoken 
by the Franks. This, though in the dominions of Charles the 
Simple, abandoned by the later for the corrupt Roman, or em- 
bryo French, was still understood by the princes, and preserved 
with a sort of reverence as the language of the victor race. It 
is, therefore, somewhat extraordinary that the Normans, instead 
of blending their language with the cognate tongue of the Teuto- 
nic Franks, should have adopted the Romanz French. We must, 
doubtless, attribute this phenomenon to the clergy, whom the 
conquerors found established in Normandy, and from whom they 
received their new education. The Normans became very sin- 
cere Christians; and, carrying into their religion the same fervour 
and earnestness which characterized all their actions, they fre- 
quented the schools, the catechisms, the sermons of their priests: 
they laboured to understand what they heard | and two generations 



CHAP. XXII.] CONRAD I. HENRY THE FOWLER. 443 

self. He recommended to the suffrages of the Germans his ri- 
val, Henry of Saxony, to whom he charged his brother Eberhard 
to deliver up the regalia of the kingdom. Henry I., surnamed 
the Fowler, was, consequently, elected soon afterwards, by the 
diet of Fritzlar. From the year 918 to 936, Germany was go- 
verned by a great prince, who delivered her from the ravages of 
the Hungarians, established order and security at home, and 
made her formidable abroad. 

The repression of the Hungarians was become the most urgent 
interest, not of Germany only, but of all Europe. But it could 
hardly be hoped that states which were too ill-organized to watch 
over their own interests, to provide for their own defence, would 
unite their efforts for a common object. The emperor Berenger, 
after sometimes driving back the Hungarians from Italy by arms 
sometimes purchasing their retreat, in the latter years of his life, 
had contracted an alliance with them. It appears that, being ex- 
tremely pressed by Rudolf of Burgundy, he ceded to them the 
passes of Friuli. A few months after his death, they took ad- 
vantage of this opening. One of their most formidable armies 
appeared before Pavia on the 12th of March, 924. 

This city, which might then be regarded as the second in the 
Western empire for population and for wealth, was reduced to 
ashes5 forty-three churches were destroyed, all the inhabitants 
were put to the sword, and it is affirmed that only two hundred 
souls survived out of the immense population it had contained. 
After this horrible carnage, the Hungarians, instead of returning 
to Pannonia with their spoil, pushed onward, and, having tra- 
versed the Alps, spread like a torrent over the plains of Provence. 
After crossing the Rhone above Aries, they attacked and pil- 
laged Nismes. From thence they marched to Toulouse, which 
they visited with all the horrors of fire and sword. Here, how- 
ever, their army was attacked by a dreadful epidemy, and was 
at length entirely destroyed by Raymond Pons, count of Tou- 
louse. 

About the same time other Hungarian armies, traversing the 
whole extent of Germany, had reached the banks of the Rhine, 
had swum across that river, and laid waste Lorraine and Neus- 
tria, in the same manner as they had formerly ravaged Germany. 

Charles the Simple, having at his disposal only fifteen hundred 
soldiers, who had been procured for him by the archbishop of 
Rheims, had kept them under the walls of Laon, without daring to 



444 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXII. 

encounter so terrible a foe, and waiting till, gorged with plunder 
and with blood, they should retire of themselves. In fact, after 
a few weeks, the Hungarians evacuated Champagne. Thej, how- 
ever, revisited it several times. 

Henry the Fowler, who had consented, during the civil wars 
which embarrassed the commencement of his reign, to pay a 
yearly tribute to the Hungarians, in the year 933 refused any 
longer to submit to this humiliation. The incensed Hungarians 
marched into Germany in two formidable armies, one of which 
encamped on the Saale, at Merseburg, while the other ravaged 
Thuringia. Henry, having collected around his banner the Sax- 
ons and the Bavarians, advanced on the former army, and offered 
battle. The Hungarians hesitated. They kindled large beacon 
fires, in the hope of bringing to their assistance their companions, 
of whom they now felt the need; but they were not within reach 
of their signals. The army of Thuringia had been attacked by 
the counts of Thuringia and of Saxony, and cut to pieces. The 
fugitives who had escaped from the field of battle, wandering 
about the country, hunted and massacred by the peasants, could 
not reunite. When this great disaster was made known to the 
Hungarians at Merseburg they endeavoured to escape, by flight, 
from the vengeance of Henry the Fowler; but terror soon gave 
them up, a defenceless prey, to the swords of the Germans. It 
was not a battle; it was a frightful butchery, in which thirty-six 
thousand of their warriors, as it is aflirmed, perished. This ter- 
rible defeat put an almost total end to the invasions which had 
so long devastated France, Italy, and Germany, 



CHAP XXII.] ARNULF. ^LOUIS IV. 441 

totally disappear, nor can we find any record of the causes or 
means of their expulsion. 

Three streams, — the Normans from the north and west, the 
Saracens from the south, the Hungarians from the east, — had 
poured down with desolating fury upon Europe. Those of the 
latter tribe, who called themselves Magyars, had been driven 
from the mountains of northern Asia, where the Tanais has its 
source, about the year 868. They had traversed the shores of 
the Black Sea, crossed the Don, forced the passes of the Kra- 
pack mountains, and had at length fixed themselves in Pannonia, 
and the countries which the Huns had formerly occupied. Their 
only dwellings were a sort of covered wagons, in which they con- 
veyed their wives and children. Mounted on small horses, 
lightly accoutred with bows and arrows, they were not less for- 
midable in flight than in attack, and surpassed even the North- 
men in cruelty; 

The emperor Arnulf is accused of having opened the gates of 
the West to them, in the year 894, when he let them loose upon 
the Moravians, with whom he was at that time at war. Arnulf, 
who had shown considerable vigour, and had caused the kingdom 
of Germany to be respected, at a time when all the other west- 
ern states were nodding to their fall, died on the 8th of Decem- 
ber, 899. From the time of his death, Germany entered on a 
period of calamities similar to those which had long desolated 
France and Italy. His son, Louis IV., who succeeded him, was 
only seven years old: he died on the 21st of November, 911, 
having not yet attained the age of twenty. During this long 
minority, the revolts of the subject Slavonian tribes, and the in- 
cursions of the Hungarians, rendered Germany a scene of ruin 
and desolation. Without looking behind them, without thinking 
of securing a retreat, the latter pushed forward across a country 
where their course was heralded by terror, and tracked by the 
blood of defenceless peasants, and the smoking ashes of their 
crops and habitations. The lightness of their equipments, and 
the rapidity of their movements, enabled them to escape from the 
heavily mounted Germans^ and while they avoided all regular 
combat, they spread death around them. Bavaria, Swabia, Thu- 
ringia, and Franconia, were ravaged by the Hungarians during 
the whole reign of Louis IV. 

The reign of Arnulf had raised the power and dignity of the 
monarch among the eastern Franks. That of Louis IV., on the 



442 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XXII. 

contrary, annihilated the unity of the monarchy. During his 
long minority the German nobles suddenly arrogated that inde- 
pendence which the lords of France had slowly usurped during 
the reign of Charles the Bald and his successors^ and it was 
precisely because Germany was more populous, more warlike — 
because the armies of the king were better disciplined — that the 
dukes, who, under Arnulf, were only the lieutenants of the king, 
rendered themselves formidable, under Louis IV., as proprietors 
of provinces and masters of armies. The eastern Franks or 
Franconians, the Saxons, the Swabians, the Bavarians, and Lo- 
tharingians, divided under as many independent dukes, appeared 
so many distinct nations, ready to declare war on each other. 

With Louis IV. expired the illegitimate branch of the de- 
scendants of Charlemagne (November 21, 911,) which had kept 
possession of the crown of Germany after the extinction of the 
legitimate branch. Charles the Simple was the sole survivor of 
the long line of Carlovingian kings; and his faculties were so 
dull and feeble, that his stupidity had become proverbial. If the 
long hostilities of the German people against the Slavonians, 
whom their oppressions had driven to despair; if the attacks of 
the Hungarians, who had already conquered the whole of the 
eastern marches, now called Austria, had not forced upon them 
the necessity of uniting for their own defence, they would, pro- 
bably, have hesitated to give a new chief to the state. An im- 
becile chief was out of the question; and, rejecting all idea of 
submitting to such a monarch as Charles the Simple, the dukes, 
who pretended to represent the nation, oiFered the crown, first, 
to Otho, duke of Saxony. He declined it, on the plea of his ad- 
vanced age, and recommended to their suffrages Conrad, duke of 
Franconia, who was unanimously elected. 

Conrad, whose valour and policy have been greatly celebrated, 
reigned seven years, nearly the whole of which were passed in 
the field, (a. d. 912 — 918,) at one while to check the invasions 
of the Hungarians, at another, to quell the insurrections of Swa- 
bia and of Bavaria; at another, to make war on Henry, duke of 
Saxony, who succeeded to his father Otho on the 30th of No- 
vember, 913; or to recall to their allegiance the Lotharingians, 
who had invited Charles the Simple, and made overtures towards 
a reunion with the French monarchy. Conrad I., king of Ger- 
many, died on the 23d of December, 918; and, as he had no 
children, he imitated the generous conduct of Otho towards him- 



{ 445 ) 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



state of Europe in the Ninth Century. — House of Saxony. — Death of Henry 
the Fowler. — His Choice of Otho I. — Exclusion of Thankmar. — His 
Death. — Otho's Person, Character, and Government. — His Victories. — His 
Influence over Louis IV. of France. — Union of Italy with Germany, — Its 
Causes and Consequences. — State of Italy. — Count Hugh of Provence. 
— Bereng-er H., King- of Lombardy. — Destruction of the Royal Power in 
France and Burgundy. — Disgraceful State of the Pontificate. — Ruin of the 
Cities of France and Germany, and of Stationary Commerce—Travelling 
Merchants. — Handicrafts exercised by Serfs. — Origin of Small Towns. 
— DecHne of Municipal Liberties. — Defective State of History. — Lothaire. 
— His unsuccessful Wars. — Marriage of Louis V. — His Imbecility. — Con- 
duct of Blanche. — Death of Louis V. — Charles of Lorraine, the last of the 
Carlovingians. — His Imprisonment and Death. — Usurpation of Hugh Capet. 
— His Character. — Death of Otho the Great. — Otho II. — His Invasion of 
France. — His V^ar with the Greeks. — His Capture and Escape. — His 
Death. — Otho III. — Revolt of the Italians.— Crescentius. — His Death. — 
Revenge of his Wife Stefania. — Death of Otho III. — Extinction of the 
House of Saxony. — Dissolution of all the Ancient Monarchies — State of 
Europe. 

During the former half of the tenth century, the Christian 
states of Europe were not united under one supreme controlling 
will, as at the beginning of the ninthj they did not constitute an 
association, — a republic of princes, the several members of which, 
though acknowledging no subordination of one to another, are still 
aware, that there exist between them mutual relations, duties, and 
rights, — in short, an association like that formed by the same states 
in the eighteenth century. On the contrary, this assemblage seemed 
but the result of a fortuitous arrangement of independent bodies, 
who, though placed in contact, knew nothing of each other; who nei- 
ther understood, nor sought to understand, each other's interests 
and sentiments. It is true, the victory gained by Henry the Fowler 
over the Hungarians at Merseburg was in some sort, an event of 
common interest, as it put an end to dangers and calamities felt 
throughout Europe. Germany, Italy, Aquitaine, Lorraine, and 
Neustria, had suffered from the ravages of the Hungarian armies; 
and, though no longer connected with each other, found a com- 
mon subject of rejoicing in their defeat. From that time the 
house of Saxony rose in importance in the eyes of all Europe; and 
Henry the Fowler, being succeeded by a son still more illustrious 

57 



446 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

than himself, Otho I., and a grandson and great-grandson, Otho 
II. and Otho III., who were esteemed worthy of treadhig in his 
footsteps, the whole attention of their contemporaries was fixed 
upon these successive rulers of Germany. Otho I., after an inter- 
regnum of thirty-nine years, was adorned with the imperial crown, 
and thenceforward placed himself at the head of Christendom. 

Henry the Fowler died in 936, after having prevailed on the 
princes of Germany to acknowledge as his successor Otho I., the 
eldest of the sons borne him by his second wife; to the preju- 
dice of Thankmar, his eldest son, whose mother he had repu- 
diated, under pretext of a vow she had made. There was no 
doubt that the crown of Germany was elective; and whatever 
were the motive which determined Henry to make a choice 
amongst his children, that choice, once confirmed by the princes 
of Germany, became legitimate. Still the jealousy and resent- 
ment of Thankmar, who saw himself thus excluded from his fa- 
ther's throne, were natural: his revolts against his brother were 
to be excused; and the beginning of the reign of Otho the Great 
is stained by his cruelty to Thankmar, who, after the first civil 
war, was killed in 937, at the foot of tlie altar at Ehresburg. 
The conduct of Otho, with respect to his children, was also not 
without reproach; like his father, he preferred those of his second 
wife to those of his first, and goaded to rebellion his eldest son 
Ludolf, who died in Italy, in the year 957. 

Thus, Otho the Great, in common with Charlemagne, began his 
career with domestic crimes, like all his contemporaries, he act- 
ed under the influence of the opinions of his age; he felt the 
same ambition, the same fierce and ungoverned passions as the 
less illustrious sovereigns whom he succeeded; like them, he sa- 
crificed his duty to his interest, before his own great genius and 
noble qualities enabled him to raise himself above the vulgar herd 
of kings. Let us be indulgent to his memory, for his was the 
inevitable fate of great men born in a barbarous age. Vast reflec- 
tion and an extensive study of the world are requisite to enable 
a man to reconstruct a code of morals for his own use; to attain 
a perception of the right and the just, at a period when they are un- 
known; and, above all, to destroy a dangerous code of monkish 
virtues and compensations for crime, which have been inculcated 
under the most sacred names, and whose only effect has been, to 
lull the conscience to rest, leaving to the passions their ancient 
empire. Otho's morality, like his wisdom, improved with age. 



CHAP. XXIII.] SUCCESSES OF OTHO. 447" 

because his actions were more and more swayed by the principles 
his own heart suggested, in preference to the example or the pre- 
cepts of the pedants who had formed his youth. 

Unfortunately, our information concerning the glorious reign of 
Otho from 936 to 973, — a reign which, more than any other, con- 
tributed to the civilization of Germany, — is extremely slight. 
We know, generally, that, from this period, Saxony, though she 
had not yet emerged from barbarism, beheld the increase of her 
towns and cities^ that the arts of industry made some progress; 
that mines of silver and copper were discovered and worked near 
Gosslar by the inhabitants. But the historians of the time give 
us few details as to the manner in which Otho governed his vast 
empire. Perhaps, indeed, there were but few to givej it appears 
that during his continual journeys, undertaken either for the pur- 
pose of leading his troops, or of presiding at the comitia of his 
several kingdoms, he suffered the nobles in the northern states, 
and the cities in the southern, to manage their provincial adminis- 
tration in their own way; and that the greater part of the munici- 
pal institutions and customs of the empire were established during 
his reign. Otho had the lofty stature, the intrepid and com- 
manding countenance, the abundance of fair hair, the bright, open, 
and daring eye, and the ruddy complexion of the north: he wore 
a long beard: contrary to the usage of his time, he spoke little 
else but German, though he understood the Uoman dialect used 
in France, and the language of his Slavonic neighbours; it was 
not till late in life that he learned to read, and that he acquired 
some knowledge of Latin. The chase, and the exercises of chi- 
valry, were his favourite pleasures: he preserved all the vigour 
of youth up to the time of his death, which took place when he 
was sixty-one years of age. 

Otho was not, like Charlemagne, the sovereign of a vast em- 
pire extending over all Europe, but rather the chief of a confe- 
deration of princes, sharing the countries which had formed that 
empire: his rank was recognised in Germany, Gaul, and Italy, 
as being equal to Charlemagne's, but his power was by no means 
the same. The union of those independent states which ac- 
knowledged him as their chief, seemed maintained only by the 
superiority of his talents and character; accordingly, we find that 
these states were sufficiently well constituted to maintain their 
own independence after his death. Charlemagne, on the con- 
trary, who had concentrated the power in his own person, could 



448 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

not have abandoned it without endangering the whole structure 
of the Western empire. 

The victories gained by Otho in the civil wars of Germany 
served as steps by which he ascended to empire. Each of the 
dukes who governed the great provinces esteemed himself an 
equal of the monarch. In a succession of battles, Otho taught 
them obedience: he then gave Bavaria to his youngest brother, 
Henry; Lorraine to St. Bruno, another brother; the new bishop- 
rics of Havelberg and Brandenburg to prelates who undertook 
the civilization of the Slavonian tribes, and the marquisate of 
Lausitz (Lusatia) to a new feudatory family engaged to defend 
the eastern frontier. The rest of the duchies of Germany he 
left in the hands of their ancient hereditary chiefs; not, how- 
ever, without ascertaining that those chiefs would hereafter be 
disposed to concur in the defence of their country. 

Otho had acquired some renown in his struggle with the dukes 
of Germany; but popular enthusiasm is excited only in favour 
of the conquerors of foreign nations: this glory was early the lot 
of the Saxon monarch. He gained constant advantages over the 
Slavonian tribes, who occupied the whole eastern frontier of Ger- 
many, and carried on an incessant border warfare; he compelled 
Harold, king of Denmark, to sue for peace; finally, he defeated 
the Hungarians on the banks of the Leek, and thus put an end 
to the ravages of that ferocious nation. 

Otho was not recognised as sovereign of France; but the weak- 
ness displayed by the princes who governed that country caused 
all eyes to be turned upon him. In the year of his accession to 
the throne of Germany, (a. d. 936,) Rudolf, king of France, ex- 
pired; and Louis IV., son of Charles the Simple, then only six- 
teen years of age, was recalled from England, where he had 
spent thirteen years in banishment, to receive a crown, which 
conferred little more than the sovereignty of the city of Laon; 
whilst his powerful vassal, Hugh, count of Paris, who placed that 
crown upon his head, reserved for himself all the powers and 
privileges of royalty. Otho 1., as sovereign of Lorraine, and as 
guardian of Conrad the Peaceful, king of Burgundy and Pro- 
vence, found, from the beginning of his reign, that it fell to him 
to exercise a powerful influence over the destinies of Louis IV., 
surnamed d'Outremer, and of count Hugh, who had each married 
one of his sisters: that influence he always exercised in a man- 
ner honourable to his own character and advantageous to the 



CHAP. XXIII.] UNION OF ITALY WITH GERMANY. 449 

neighbouring state. During his whole reign, from 936 to 954, 
Louis d'Outremer, humiliated bj the contrast between the pomp- 
ous titles with which he was decorated, and the weakness of his 
resources, seized every occasion of aggrandizing himself, even 
at the expense of his brothers-in-law^ nor was his conduct to 
Otho the Great always consistent with truth and loyalty. He 
took part in the civil wars of Germany, and accepted with eager- 
ness every proposal made to him by the enemies of his powerful 
neighbour. During the beginning of these two reigns, Louis be- 
came the nominal chief of the malecon tents of Germany, and 
Otho of those of France. But the latter, far from abusing his 
own superior power, seemed to use every effort to re-establish 
peace and order throughout the West. He interposed to recon- 
cile Louis d'Outremer with his subjects, without in the least 
abandoning or compromising the interests of the nobles of Neus- 
tria, who had placed confidence in him; and, in 942, he pre- 
vailed on the king and the count of Paris to sign a treaty of 
peace, which he undertook to guaranty. 

But indisputably the most important event of the reign of 
Otho I. was the union of the crown of Italy with that of Ger- 
many; a union which, though the fruit of his virtues, and the 
consequence of his high reputation, was not the less fatal to the 
posterity of both nations; a union repugnant to nature, and pro- 
lific only in wars and calamities; a union which subjected the 
most civilized nations to the most barbarous,— the masters of 
every art and science to their least skilled disciples; a union 
which was offensive in proportion as the manners, the opinions, 
the languages of the two nations were contrasted; as the slow- 
ness of apprehension, the avarice, the hardness, and the apathy 
of the Germans, disgusted a people so lively, intelligent, and 
impassioned as the Italians; while the very sounds of so harsh 
and barbarous a language, prevailing in every station of com- 
mand, seemed formed to offend the musical ear of the people 
condemned to obey. 

It has been remarked, that the feelings of resentment arising 
from war in the minds of neighbouring nations are far less pro- 
found than those occasioned by injuries inflicted under the 
shadow of peace. Necessity is the first of all laws, to which 
man learns to submit; and victory, conquest, those grand mani- 
festations of human energy, force us to bow to the empire of ne- 
cessity. In their submission to the Germans, the Italians had 



450 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

not even this consolation. Otho the Great became their ac- 
knowledged sovereign, partly from the imprudence of their lead- 
ers, partly from the gratitude of the people. They fought no 
battles^ they underwent no defeat; and, on a sudden, they found 
their country a dependency of the German crown, before those 
who proclaimed themselves their masters had been called upon 
to produce a single title to justify their usurpation; not even that 
of conquest. 

The Italian nation began to awaken from its lethargy in the 
tenth century; its towns were gradually becoming rich and in- 
dustrious; virtues and talents were beginning to be unfolded in 
those numerous governments which enjoyed an almost absolute 
independence, and which spread new life throughout the pro- 
vinces. But these governments, — those, at least, of the power- 
ful dukes and marquesses who shared amongst themselves almost 
the whole country, — were not the work of the nation, and the 
nation could not be responsible for their faults. It is an accusa- 
tion brought against these great nobles, that it was their constant 
aim, during the ninth and tenth centuries, to place two monarchs 
in opposition to each other, as a means of weakening and cramp- 
ing both. The marquesses and dukes of Italy appealed to fo- 
reign sovereigns, not for the purpose of subjugating their country, 
but for that of limiting the royal power. It was by them that 
Otho the Great was twice invited; it was they who believed their 
liberty and their privileges more secure under a distant monarch; 
it was they who presented to that great man a crown for which 
he was not indebted to his sword, and which he transmitted to 
successors unworthy of him. 

The tyranny of Hugh count of Provence, whom these very 
nobles had made king of Italy, from 926 to 947, drove them to 
seek foreign aid. By an artful and dexterous policy, an autho- 
rity at first very limited, had been changed into absolute power; 
and the sway of Hugh once established, no part of Italy could 
have attempted any resistance which would not have been im- 
mediately suppressed by force. Accordingly, Berenger II., 
marquis of Ivrea, withdrew into Germany, for the purpose of as- 
sembling the enemies of Hugh, and of forming the army by 
whose assistance he expected to deliver his country. This fur- 
nished Otho the Great with the first occasion of taking an indi- 
rect part in the revolutions of Italy, by affording protection to 
the unhappy exiles who begged him to grant them an asylum. 



CHAP. XXIII.] HUGH OF PROVENCE AND BERENGEK II. 451 

The revolution begun by Berenger II. succeeded; he re-entered 
Italy at the head of the emigrants | he obliged Hugh to retreat, 
and was speedily recognised as king. But the example he had 
given was quickly followed 5 fresh malecontents, in their turn, 
had recourse to Otho the Great, and, unhappily, they, also, could 
plead well grounded subjects of complaint. Otho I. appeared 
in Italy as the avenger of wrongs, as the champion of justice. 
In 951, he re-established peace between Berenger II. and his 
subjects: but, at the same time, he obliged the former to do him 
homage for his crown. In 960, summoned afresh by the wishes 
of almost the whole country, he deposed Berenger, took posses- 
sion of the crown of Lombardy, and, on the 9th of February, 
962, surmounted it with the imperial diadem. Both were elec- 
tive, and he owed his nomination to those in whom the right to 
elect resided: he made a noble use of his power; but the fatal 
example of uniting Germany with Italy was given; and his Ger- 
man successors looked upon that as a right, which had originally 
been but a concession on the part of the people. 

The strength of character and the distinguished talents of 
Otho the Great, formed a rare exception to the customary laws 
of nature. The possession of such qualities enabled him to 
make a more extended and beneficent use of the royal power 
than any of the other sovereigns of this period. The exhorbi- 
tant growth of the privileges of the great nobles, the assumption, 
on their part, of all the prerogatives which seem to constitute 
royalty, had rendered the kingly office useless; it was no longer 
any thing but a supernumerary wheel, giving additional intricacy 
to the machine of the state, while it imparted no additional 
power; a luxury with which, it seems, the people might well 
have dispensed. In the family even of Otho the Great, the bro- 
ther of his wife, Conrad the Peaceful, whose guardian the for- 
mer had been, during a very long reign, (a. d. 937 — 993,) over 
Transjurane Burgundy and Provence, remained so completely 
inactive, that history has hardly preserved any record of him. 
The other brother-in-law of Otho, his sister's husband, Louis 
d'Outremer, died many years before him, in 954, and left an in- 
fant son, Lothaire, who grew up under the protection of Otho 
and his brother, St. Bruno, archbishop of Cologne. The count 
Hugh had survived Louis but two years, and his three sons, the 
most celebrated of whom was Hugh Capet, were also children. 
The two widows of Louis and of Hugh, sisters of Otho and St. 



452 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

Bruno, forgot the rivalship which had subsisted between their 
husbands, and placed themselves, with their children, under the 
powerful protection of their brother. The royal authority was 
thus in abeyance in France and Transjurane Burgundy; it was 
equally so both in Italy and Germany, after the death of the em- 
peror Otho, and especially during the long minority of his grand- 
son, Otho III.; nor does it appear that society experienced any 
serious inconvenience. In truth, the royal power was not suffi- 
cient to enable its possessors to be either permanent moderators 
or umpires of the feuds of their great vassals. They dared not 
constitute themselves defenders of the laws and of public order; 
on the contrary, they felt themselves compelled to adhere to the 
more powerful of two rivals; to sanction with their authority the 
encroachments of the stronger after victory; to alienate what 
was inalienable; to perpetrate a legal robbery on the lawful heirs 
in favour of their oppressors; to trample under foot the statutes 
which regulated the succession of fiefs; to bestow on secular no- 
bles bishoprics and abbacies, which, according to the canons, 
could be given to none but ecclesiastics; in short, from weakness 
and fear, to commit, in favour of their most formidable vassals, 
acts as arbitrary as those of the most absolute despotism. 

Kings were not the protectors of the nobility; since they lent 
their assistance only to those nobles who were already more pow- 
erful than themselves, while they refused it to those who really 
needed support. Kings were not the protectors of the clergy; — 
not that this powerful order, which, in the preceding century, 
had possessed the real sovereignty of France, was not sometimes 
in want of a champion; for the blind piety of kings and nobles 
had no sooner loaded them with riches and fiefs than their trea- 
sures and their lands tempted the avidity of the soldiery; or 
than some knight, uniting the cross and the sword, bore away, as 
a secular prelate, all the wealth which some former warrior had 
bestowed upon the church: but the king either tolerated these 
irregularities, or himself committed them, and the secularizations 
which caused the greatest scandal almost always obtained his 
sanction. Finally, kings were not the protectors of a third 
estate, which they had suffered to be crushed; which, as a na- 
tional power, no longer existed. Every tie between them and 
the people was destroyed, and in the serfs of their vassals they 
could no longer recognise their own subjects. 

This state of society was, without doubt, less destructive than 



CHAP. XXIIl.] DECLINE OF THE KINGLY POWER. 453 

that bj which it had been preceded j but it is far less favourable 
to the historian. If we pass in review every topic which proper* 
ly falls within the province of history, we find that there were, 
at this period, absolutely none which could furnish matter for ob- 
servation; especially at a time when all communication was dif- 
ficult; when no conveyance for letters existed; when no journal, 
no periodical publication gave an account of passing events; and 
when the only knowledge of what was done, even in a neighbour- 
ing state, was conveyed by travelling merchants, or by marching 
armies. Kings, who had now scarcely any share in the adminis • 
tration of the countries they nominally governed; having no mi- 
nistry, no standing army; in short, nothing but a household com- 
posed of great officers attached to their persons, through whom 
they carried on the small portion of public affairs that devolved 
upon them; spent their time chiefly in journeying from castle to 
castle, or more frequently from convent to convent. We can- 
not, therefore, wonder, if we find the chronicles of the tenth and 
eleventh centuries sometimes entirely forgetting them for years 
together. In many of them, the learned writers only labour to 
discover if they were still in existence, and what was the place 
of their abode. No nation any longer possessed the means of 
carrying on national wars; and, dating from the cessation of the 
invasions of the Normans and the Hungarians, the whole mili- 
tary history of the age is almost confined to attacks upon castles 
in a circle of some leagues around each petty prince. Legisla- 
tion was as completely suspended as war. In the history of 
France there are at least four centuries, during which legislative 
power existed nowhere, — from the last capitulary of the year 
882, till a considerable time after the institutions of St. Louis in 
1269. And even the latter, with which French legislation re- 
commences, are addressed only to the royal fiefs. In the em- 
pire, both in Germany and in Italy, the suspension was shorter or 
not so complete; but the laws promulgated from the assembly at 
Roncaglia, by the Othos and their successors, were hardly recog- 
nised by the states to which they were addressed. 

Ecclesiastical history itself seemed suspended; since almost 
all the more valuable benefices of the church were become the 
property of some temporal baron, who could not read, and who 
thought himself guilty of no usurpation, provided that, however 
deeply infected with the passions and the vices of his age, he 
had received the ecclesiastical tonsure. The chair of Rome, 

58 



454 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

even, had not escaped these encroachments of the great feudato- 
ry subjects. Too large a portion of grandeur and of wealth had 
been accumulated around the papal throne, to allow the powerful 
nobility in the neighbourhood of Rome to regard it without feel- 
ings of ambition and envy. Indeed, for some time, it became, 
as it were, hereditary in the family of the marquesses of Tuscu- 
lumj its destination was likewise repeatedly determined by two 
Roman ladies, celebrated for their gallantries — Theodora and 
Marozia — who successively raised to the sacred chair either 
their lovers or their children. During the greater part of the 
tenth century, the heads of the Christian church were young no- 
bles, hardly past the age of boyhood, from whom no one thought 
of demanding a decision in matters of faith, and over the histo- 
ry of whose debaucheries the annalists of the church have ra- 
pidly passed, as too scandalous for their pens. 

The active portion of the community — the dukes, the counts, 
the castellans, or lords of castles — almost completely escaped 
the notice of history, by their profound ignorance, and their com- 
plete indifference to the opinions of contemporaries, or to the 
judgments of posterity. The historical labours set on foot some- 
what later by this same nobility, in their genealogical researches 
or the blazonry of their armorial bearings, had not yet begun. 
The pride of birth itself is a step made by society towards an ap- 
preciation of the value of the esteem of others, which the men of 
this age had not yet made; as yet, they attached but slight im- 
portance to the knowledge of their origin and descent; it was 
enough for them to feel that they were powerful. We, accord- 
ingly, find that none of the chronicles of these new dynasties 
were begun in the tenth century; none of the princely families 
of that period cared for posterity, or imagined that posterity 
would care for them. 

At a later period, history resumed her labours in the towns 
and cities both of Italy and Spain. Great assemblages of men 
had not only common interests, but likewise a necessary publici- 
ty, which permitted authors to seize at least the general features 
of municipal history, and awoke the attention of the men of the 
time to the advantages which they would derive from an ac- 
quaintance with the deeds of former ages; but in the remaining 
part of the West, in France and Germany, the inhabitants of 
the towns had little to record but their sufferings. Victims of 
every invasion; pillaged or burned in every war, whether domes- 



CHAP. XXiri.] TRADE AND MANUFACTURES. 455 

tic or foreign; the towns were reduced to the most deplorable 
condition. Their population was no longer composed of men of 
independent station, of capitalists, of merchants, and of manu- 
facturers; but of a trembling and enslaved populace, who lived 
from daj to day, and who, if they succeeded in saving any thing, 
took care to conceal it under an appearance of abject poverty. 

These towns were no longer either the seat of government or 
of any subordinate administration. The kingdoms of France, 
Germany, Lorraine, Transjurane Burgundy, and Italy, were ac- 
tually without capitals; each province had no longer its metropo- 
lis; castles were the residence of kings, prelates, dukes, counts, 
and viscounts; in them were assembled the courts of law, and 
in them was justice administered; in them were to be found all 
who enjoyed any independent fortune, all who affected the least 
elegance or luxury in their dwellings or their attire. It is true, 
that certain trades were still obscurely carried on in the towns, 
but almost exclusively for the use of the neighbourhood: this was 
particularly the case in those of the south of Gaul, which had 
more commonly escaped the ravages so destructive to all those 
of the north; but, in general, commerce, as must always be the 
case, had followed in the track of those who required what she 
could supply. It was not in the ancient capitals of Gaul that 
the splendid assortments of armour, and the rich magazines of 
stuffs, used by the lords and knights, or by the high-born ladies 
of the castles, were to be found. The merchant had no choice 
but to be a traveller; as he still is in the Levant, as he still is in 
every country where the people are oppressed. He went on his 
way, accompanied by his carriages, and thus transported his goods 
from the domains of one count or baron to those of another. He 
had no fixed place of abode, no known warehouse, no fortune, 
the amount of which could be calculated, except the small quan- 
tity of goods which he carried about with him. Thus he avoided 
the avidity and the extortions of a prince against whose power he 
had no means of defence; and the protection of those amongst 
whom he made his regular visits was only obtained by their be- 
ing made to feel the need in which they stood of his services. 

As to the mechanical arts which required less intelligence, less 
capital, and which might be exercised indifferently in all places, 
the powerful took care to have some of their serfs trained to their 
exercise. Every prelate, every count or viscount, endeavoured 
to have for his own especial service a set of the same " good ar- 



456 TALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [CHAP. XXIII, 

tisans " that Charlemagne, a hundred and fifty years before, had 
commanded his judges to provide for each of his castles or royal 
abodes; viz. " workmen in iron, gold, and silver; stone-cut- 
ters, turners, carpenters, armorers, engravers, washers; brewers 
skilled in making mead, cider, and perry, and all other liquors 
fit to be drunk; bakers, who likewise have the art of preparing 
millet for our use; net-makers, able to make every thing apper- 
taining to the chase; and all other tradesmen, whom it would be 
too long to enumerate." From the time of Charlemagne these 
artisans were but miserable serfs, who worked on the monarch's 
account with the materials furnished them by his judges. At a 
later period, they were equally serfs, but they belonged to the 
nobles or to the prelates, who had need of their services; and their 
number was reduced in the proportion which the power or the 
wealth of a count bore to that of an emperor of the West. Hence 
it was that the foundation of a convent or of a castle was always 
followed by the erection of a wretched village, where, under the 
shadow of the great house, the men whose labour was necessary 
to the master congregated. 

In the course of the tenth century, these villages, grown with 
time into small towns, multiplied as the feudatory families also 
increased; for every house diverged into a great number of 
branches, and new counts and viscounts inhabited places before 
unoccupied. But the progress of these villages contributed to 
hasten the ruin of the large towns; just as the slavery of the arti- 
ficers had caused the decline of all mechanical arts. The citizens 
of Paris, Rouen, Amiens, Tours, who, under the first dynas- 
ty, had found a certain livelihood in their handicrafts or their 
commerce; and who, by their labour and economy, could then 
repair the losses of war and the harassing exactions of the Frank 
kings, under the second family, could no longer find employment 
or purchasers. When the Normans, the Saracens, or the Hunga- 
rians had burned any great town, a few unhappy beings assembled 
afresh amongst the ruins; but they brought with them no means of 
regaining their former opulence, of restoring their families, or of 
repairing the losses which the mass of the population had suffered. 
The impoverishment of the towns, and the diminution in the num- 
ber of their inhabitants at this period, had been followed by the 
loss of all their privileges. In the tenth century, the curiae, or the 
senates of the cities, and the assemblies of the burgesses, which 
the first Franks had respected, had totally disappeared. Nor did 



CHAP. XXIII.] LOTHAIRE. HUGH CAPET. 457 

the inhabitants lay claim to any privileges, liberties, or immuni- 
tiesj nor did any insurrectionary movement, any tumult, indicate 
their discontent at being deprived of them. Indeed, such rights 
had been silently renounced at the time when the cities had 
ceased to contain any men of independent fortune or of education, 
in the enjoyment of leisure, and possessed of the requisite courage 
and talents to maintain them. 

The state of the different classes of the population in the tenth 
century, explains both the silence and the confusion of the his- 
torians of that period: but without an actual perusal of these an- 
cient documents, it is impossible to conceive to how few lines all 
that has been preserved to us from that age reduces itself, and 
how much suspicion attaches even to those few. It would be 
dijHicult to imagine all the errors and anachronisms into which 
Ademar de Chabannes, or the monk Odorannus, have fallen, 
though both of them rank amongst the number of the best chro- 
niclers of France belonging to that epoch; or the profound igno- 
rance of the affairs of France displayed by Wittikind, in other 
respects an intelligent historian, and well informed whenever he 
speaks of Otho I. In the midst of this profound obscurity, we 
will endeavour to point out in a summary manner the two impor- 
tant events which marked the second half of the tenth century; — 
in France, the extinction of the second branch of the Carlovingian 
dynasty; and in Germany and Italy, that of the house of Saxony. 

Louis d'Outremer expired on the 10th of September, 954, in 
consequence of a fall from his horse, which had taken fright at 
the appearance of a wolf on the banks of the Aisne. He left two 
children: Lothaire, between thirteen and fourteen years old; and 
Charles, an infant, who, many years afterwards, was duke of 
Lower Lorraine. Hugh count of Paris, rival and brother-in-law 
of Louis IV., died two years after him, on the 16th of June, 956, 
and left three sons, the eldest of whom, Otho, died in 963; the 
second, Hugh Capet, was six years younger than the king Lo- 
thaire; the third was destined to holy orders. Lothaire and 
Hugh Capet, sons of two sisters, and both protected by Otho the 
Great and his brother, were brought up by their mothers in great 
harmony. After they had both arrived to man's estate, it does 
not appear that this good understanding was troubled, or that the 
rivalry existing between their fathers was renewed between them- 
selves. On the contrary, it is remarkable that Hugh Capet, des- 
tined at a later period to play the part of a usurper, during the 



458 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP, XXIII. 

long reign of his cousin, (a. d. 954 — 986,) afforded no remarkable 
evidence either of ambition or of talents. He passed his life 
peaceably, in the enjoyment of the wealth and the vast fiefs 
vi^hich rendered him far superior in power to his cousin, of whom 
he was only the first vassal; and when he was afterwards placed 
on the throne, he was indebted neither to his merit, his reputa- 
tion, nor his activity, but to the extreme disproportion between 
the extent of his possessions and those of the royal family. 

The life of Lothaire appears to have been more active; he felt 
humbled by the contrast between his weakness or his poverty, 
and the titles with which he was decorated; he set himself to 
work to recover either power or influence; but to the want of 
loyalty shown by his father, he added a want of judgment, which 
made him fail in all his undertakings. On the death of his uncle 
Otho the Great, on the 7th of May 973, forgetful of the gratitude 
he owed him, he thought he might profit by the youth of his 
cousin Otho II., who was but eighteen years old, and, by the 
troubles in the family, to strip him of his possessions. He at- 
tacked him without making any declaration of war, and defeat 
and shame were all that he gained. By this aggression he pro- 
voked the Germans to enter France and to advance as far as the 
walls of Paris; while, even in his own army, he had continual 
proofs of the contempt in which the French held both his courage 
and his capacity. He made peace with Otho II.; but at the death 
of the latter, in 983, he again tried to take advantage of the 
childhood of Otho III., to rob him of some of his provinces. His 
success was the same as before. 

In 985, Lothaire went to Limoges, and spent some months in 
Aquitaine, to be present at the marriage of his son Louis V., then 
eighteen years of age, and associated in the sovereignty for the 
last six years, to a daughter of a count of that country whose 
name is not known. The race of the Carlovingians was smitten 
with the same hereditary imbecility which for so long a period 
had been the lot of the Merovingians. Lothaire, of whom we 
know very little, seems to have been an object of universal con- 
tempt. His wife Emma not only partook of this sentiment, but 
is accused of having increased it by her gallantries. "Blanche, 
the wife of his son," says Rudolf Glaber, a contemporary author, 
" seeing that the son had still less talent than his father, and being 
herself a lady of a rare wit, resolved to seek a divorce. She art- 
fully proposed to him to return with her into her own province. 



CHAP. XXIII.] CHARLES OF LORRAINE. 459 

to cause her hereditary rights to be acknowledged, Louis, who 
did not suspect her design, made his preparations for the journey; 
but as soon as they had passed the frontier of Aquitaine, Blanche 
abandoned him, and rejoined her countrymen. When Lothaire 
was informed of this, he set out after his son, and having joined 
him, brought him home." 

This fragment, incomplete as it is, is well nigh the most precise 
information we have of the reigns of Lothaire and his son. The 
former died on the 2d of March, 986, and was interred atRheims: 
a vague report prevailed that he had been poisoned by his wife. 
The following year, his son Louis V., who was surnamed le Fai- 
neant, having expired on the 21st of May, 987, his wife, who had 
returned to him, was also accused of poisoning him. But both 
of these queens must have seen, that, far from reaping any ad- 
vantage from such a crime, they had nothing to expect but what 
in reality followed — the total ruin of the Carlovingian dynasty. 
The race was not, however, extinct. Lothaire had a brother, 
Charles duke of Lorraine, who had children. Charles, it is true, 
had displayed a petulance without capacity, an activity without 
perseverance, which had rendered him no less contemptible than 
his more indolent predecessors. Still he was acknowledged at 
Laon, the only town remaining in the hereditary domain of the 
sovereign; and he entered into negotiation with the bishops to 
secure his coronation. But Hugh Capet, then forty-two years 
of age, who had not heretofore distinguished himself by any great 
quality or any striking action, assembled his own vassals, — the 
counts and barons who held of the earldom of Paris, the duchy of 
Neustria, and the duchy of France. Their little army saluted 
him with the title of king at Noyon; and Adalberon, archbishop 
of Rheims, anointed and crowned him, July 3d, 987, in the ca- 
thedral at Rheims. After this pretended election, in which the 
rest of France took no part whatever, and which several pro- 
vinces refused to recognise for three or four generations, Hugh 
Capet besieged Laon, and was repulsed by Charles. Corruption 
was more successful than arms. The last of the Carlovingians 
was surprised in his bed by traitors, and thrown into the prison 
of Orleans, where he died, after many years of captivity. 

The degradation and fall of an ancient line, the perfidy of the 
new sovereign, the disloyalty of those who brought about the re- 
volution, have made this period far from an agreeable subject to 
French historians: they hurry through it with extreme rapidity, 



460 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

and no part of the history of the monarchy is, perhaps, enveloped 
in greater obscurity. The later events of the house of Saxony, 
about the same time, are better known, and related in greater 
detail. 

Otho I., who died on the 7th of May, 973, had, during the lat- 
ter years of his life, reformed the administration of Italy; he had 
restored to the pontifical chair its dignity, by causing pope John 
XII., who dishonoured the tiara by his youth and his vices, to be 
solemnly deposed by a council; and had put an end to the scan- 
dalous proceedings of the counts of Tusculum and their mis- 
tresses, who disposed of the pontificate. Otho, who had experi- 
enced the inconstancy and faithlessness of the great feudatories 
of the crown, had strenuously endeavoured to increase the impor- 
tance of the cities. Those of Italy, which already surpassed any 
of the West in number and opulence, obtained from him permis- 
sion to surround themselves with strong walls; to nominate their 
own magistrates, who were to perform at the same time the func- 
tions of judges, of captains of their militia, and of administrators; 
in short, to limit the power of the counts sufficiently to protect 
themselves from arbitrary measures. The people of Italy che- 
rished towards Otho and his family, gratitude proportioned to such 
vast benefits; and his son, who had been associated with him in 
the imperial government from the year 967, though only eighteen 
years old at the death of his father, was recognised without 
difficulty by the Italians, as their sovereign. 

Otho II., surnamed the Red, from the colour of his hair, had 
not the talents, still less the virtues, of his father. The vices of 
his youth determined his mother Adelheid, afterwards venerated 
as a saint, to retire from the court. His ambition led him to un- 
dertake several unjust wars; while his imprudence sometimes 
brought down defeat upon his arms. He had, however, that ac- 
tivity of mind, that promptitude of decision, that energy, which 
subjects are so ready to regard as proofs of a great character in 
their king; and his reign of ten years' duration, from 973 to 983, 
was not without glory. Unjustly and traitorously attacked by 
his cousin Lothaire, he entered France to avenge himself at the 
head of a numerous army; and, as he had predicted, he reached 
the heights of Montmartre, where he made his soldiers sing hal- 
lelujah loud enough to be heard in the church of Ste. Genevieve. 
In Germany, he gained several advantages over his cousin, Hen- 
ry, duke of Bavaria, who was indebted to his unjust aggressions 



CHAP. XXIII.] OTHO II. 461 

for his nowise honourable surname of le Querelleur. In Italy, 
Otho II. had many contests with the Greeks, whom he aimed at 
depriving of the possession of the provinces of Puglia and Ca- 
labria. He had wedded a Greek princess, Theophania, sister of 
the two emperors Constantine and Basil, whose reign was at 
once the longest (a. d. 963 — 1028) and the most obscure in the 
whole history of Byzantium. Whilst his two brothers-in-law 
were engaged in a war against the Bulgarians, which terminated 
in the conquest of their whole territory, Otho II., who had en- 
tered Italy with a numerous German array, in 980, and had 
strengthened himself by the alliance of the duke of Benevento, 
advanced into those provinces which now form the Ijingdom of 
Naples 5 an enterprise which the duke of Benevento had greatly 
facilitated by the cession of all the mountain passes. Capitana- 
ta, on the Adriatic, Calabria, and a part of Basilicata alone re- 
sisted his whole force. The Greek emperors, it is true, being 
unable to send troops into Italy,> had called in the aid of the Sa- 
racens, who joined their arms to those of the Greeks for the de- 
fence of southern Italy. 

After a struggle of two years, the fate of the war was decided 
by a great battle fought near the sea-coast before the little town 
of Basentello, in Lower Calabria^ There Otho II. met the com- 
bined army of the Saracens and the Greeks, who were awaiting 
him. The first attack of the Germans threw the Eastern troops 
into disorder^ but, at the moment that the conquerors, in the ar- 
dour of pursuit, broke their ranks, the reserve of the Saracens 
fell upon them, and a fearful massacre ensued. 

After the loss of his army, Otho II. fled along the coast, on 
which the village of Basentello is built. Hard pressed by the 
Saracens, who were in pursuit of him, a Greek galley, which he 
saw at anchor at some distance, aflforded to him in his distress a 
refuge from fiercer and more implacable enemies. He made 
himself known to the commander of the galley, and surrendered 
himself his prisoner. He quickly perceived that the Greek, 
dazzled by such an unexpected prize, would be willing to sacri- 
fice the advantage of his country to his own interest. Otho pro- 
mised him vast heaps of gold if he would conduct him to Rossa- 
no, where his mother Adelheid then was. The galley set sail for 
that town. A secret negotiation was entered into by the cap- 
tain, Otho, and the empress. Whilst several mules, heavily 
laden, were making their way to the sea- shore, some of the em- 

59 



463 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIII. 

peror's guards approached the galley in a boat, to ascertain whe- 
ther it were really their sovereign, who was shown to them on 
the deck, clothed in purple. The Greeks, accustomed to the 
habits of their own emperors, who could not take a step without 
the aid of their eunuchs, and intent on their bargain, were keep- 
ing but a careless watch over their prisoner, when Otho threw 
himself into the sea, swam to the boat which contained his 
guards, ordered them to row to shore, and putting his own hand 
to the oar, reached the port, where the captain of the galley 
could neither retake his prisoner nor touch the promised ransom. 
Having escaped from his enemies, he immediately retired into 
Upper Italy. 

All the crowns w^orn by Otho II. were elective^ but no sooner 
had the empress Theophania borne him a son, than he took mea- 
sures to secure the succession to him. He caused him to be 
elected king of Germany, by a diet of his states which he called 
together at Verona. This precaution was justified by the event. 
Otho II. died at Rome, a few months afterwards (December 983.) 
The infant Otho III., whom he left under the guardianship of his 
mother and his grandmother, was, for a long time, the sport of 
the German factions, which were instigated by his cousins, Henry 
le Querelleur, and Lothaire, king of France. The affection 
borne by the Germans to the memory of his father and his grand- 
father, kept him, however, in possession of the crow^n. When, in 
995, at the age of fifteen, the young Otho III. entered Italy with 
a German army, to receive the united crowns of the empire and 
of Lombardy^ when, with the help of this same army, he brought 
about the elevation of his relative, Bruno of Saxony, (who took 
the name of Gregory V.) to the papal chair^ the Italians perceived 
with amazement that the Germans, by whom they had never 
been conquered, treated them as a conquered nationj that they 
no longer paid any regard to their rights and privileges; that 
they forcibly appropriated to themselves the tiara of Rome, the 
imperial crown, and the royalty of Lombardy, to each of which 
election alone could confer a right. A man, whose heart burned 
with the remembrance of the ancient glory of Rome, Crescen- 
tius, took the title of consul, and placed himself at the head of 
the cause of Roman liberty, of Italian independence. His great 
character is but dimly seen amid the thick darkness of the tenth 
century; the historians of the empire and the church have endea- 
voured to blacken his reputation; but the grateful people have 
given the names of the Tower of Crescentius, of the Palace of 



CHAP. XXIII.] DISSOLUTION OF STATES. 463 

Crescentius, to the Mole of Adrian, and to a palace on the Tiber, 
—to objects, in short, which reminded them of a glorious strug- 
gle, an obstinate though vain resistance. Crescentius was, at 
last, reduced to capitulate, and to throw open the Mole of Adrian 
to the youthful Otho III. 5 and the latter, with the perfidy of 
which the oppressors of the Italians (whom they accuse of want 
of faith) have given many an example, put to death the champion 
of Italy, contrary to the capitulation to which he had sworn. 
But Crescentius left a beloved wife, the beautiful Stefania, who, 
to avenge her husband, threw aside every other sentiment proper 
to her sex. She learned that Otho III. had fallen ill on his re- 
turn from a pilgrimage to Monte Gargano; she contrived that 
her profound skill in medicine should come to his ear. In obe- 
dience to his summons she attended on him, dressed in long 
mourning garments, but still captivating by her beauty^ she ob- 
tained his confidence, perhaps at the highest of all prices, and 
made use of it to administer a poison which was soon followed 
by a painful death. The last of the Othos of Saxony came to 
Paterno, on the frontiers of the Abruzzi, to breathe his last, on 
the 19th of January, 1002. 

Thus expired the house of Saxony, which, fifty years before, 
had become illustrious from the splendid qualities of its founder. 
The Cailovingian line had lately gone out in weakness, imbeci- 
lity, and shame. The family of Basil the Macedonian was on 
the point of terminating with the prince who then reigned; and, 
before that event, the great kingdom of the Bulgarians had 
ceased to exist. Kader, the forty-fourth of the khaliphs, suc- 
cessors of Mahommed, could no longer command obedience 
w^ithout the walls of Bagdad. Spain was divided amongst the 
Moorish kings of Corduba, and the petty Christian princes of 
Leon, Navarre, Castile, Sobrarba, and Arragon. England was 
invaded and half conquered by the Danes. Great monarchies 
were every where broken down; great nations no longer recog- 
nised a chief, or a common bond of union; society, dissolved by 
a series of revolutions, exhibited no tendency to reunite into a 
single whole. Of that great Roman empire, to that colossus which 
had overshadowed the whole earth, — after repeated convulsions, 
after sufferings and calamities without example, prolonged 
through eight centuries, — there remained only the dust. But 
the work of destruction was accomplished; and even from that 
dust were to be hereafter moulded the new social structures 
which divide Europe at the present day. 



( 464 ) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Demand for Unity and Arrangement by the human Mind. — Difficulty of sup- 
plying this Demand in History. — Peculiar Difficulties attached to the Por- 
tion treated of in these Volumes. — Cursory Review of Topics. — Reasons for 
stopping at the Year 1000,-^ — General Belief, at that Period, of the ap- 
proaching End of the World. — Three distinct Characters of European Na- 
tions. — 1. Unprofitable Erudition and mental Feebleness of the Greeks. — 
Works of Photius, Leo the Philosopher, and Constantine Porphyrogeni- 
tus. — 2. Mental Activity and Love of Liberty of the Italians. — Venice. — 
Pisa. — Genoa. — Character of their Sailors and Merchants. — Republican 
Institutions of the Lombard Cities. — Revival of Letters nearly coincident 
with that of Liberty. — 3. Spirit of Chivalry of the Franks. — This Spirit 
the exclusive Distinction of the Nobles. — ^Necessity for Self-Defence caused 
by the weakness of the Government. — Castles. — Body Armour. — Moral 
Eifects of Feudalism. — Complete Degradation of the human Species during 
the previous eight Centuries. — Absolute Predominance of the Principle of 
Selfishness — that Principle incompatible with any Virtue or any Glory. 

The human mind appears to be incapable of forming a clear con- 
ception or picture of facts which bear no relation to each other; 
of unconnected narratives; of results independent of a common 
cause. When a variety of objects are placed before the mind, it 
labours to classify them — to reduce them to a system; nor till this 
is accomplished does it readily grasp, or firmly retain them. 
We find this principle — this fundamental neccessity for unity 
and symmetry in all the productions of the mind, displayed in 
the fine arts; this demand for system, in the arrangement of the 
sciences. This unity, pervading all the separate portions of a 
subject, exists, generally, less in things themselves than in our 
own faculties; nor, till we have mastered it, are our understand- 
ings in a state to take in new knowledge. The very word, in- 
deed, to conceive — ^to take together — implies this operation of the 
mind. 

But, of all branches of human knowledge, that which appears 
the most difficult to subject to unity of design, is history. We 
constantly find events implicated which are, in fact, wholly inde- 
pendent of each other: causes become confounded with effects, 
and effects in turn take the place of causes; thousands of inte- 
rests, foreign to each other, intermingle, without either uniting, 
or neutralizing each other. The history of one man, or the his- 



CHAP. XXIV.] DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING HISTORY. 465 

tory of one people, would, however, present a system, an orga- 
nic whole, to the mind^ — a central point, around which we might 
arrange all subsidiary objects. But, when we seek to discover 
truth in a concatenation of facts, we must give up this central 
pointy for, as no nation, or hardly any, has an isolated existence, 
the history of any single one cannot be detached from that of the 
rest: age is enlinked with age — generation with generation j causes 
are connected together j nations act and react upon each other. 
The nation, the individual, or the epoch which we detach from 
all surrounding circumstances, to set it, as it were, in a separate 
frame and concentrate attention upon it, will appear to greater 
advantage, as far as the art of the historian is concerned, but will 
be treated with a less conscientious regard to truth. If it be our 
object to become thoroughly acquainted with facts, to draw from 
history every lesson she can afford, we must take her such as she 
really is; — a varied tissue, whose threads, of which we can dis- 
cover neither the beginning nor the end, reach from points the 
most remote, the most independent of each other. 

If such be the defect of history in general, more particularly is 
it that of the period upon which we have endeavoured, in this 
work, to fix the notice of the public. We have passed in review 
the first thousand years of Christianity, and have especially de- 
voted our attention to the eight centuries which elapsed from the 
time that the Antonines united almost the whole of the known 
earth under a government apparently affording security for order 
and tranquillity, to the epoch when every successive effort of 
man to reconstruct a great monarchy failed; and when, at the 
end of the tenth century, society seemed in a state of general 
dissolution. We have thought this period worthy of peculiar at- 
tention, because its influence has been permanent; because it con- 
tains the germe of the opinions, the feelings, the institutions, the 
actions which we see in operation under our own eyes; because 
it has been fertile in experiments, both on forms of government 
and on the varieties of moral education to which mankind can be 
subjected. Nevertheless, this period, which we have just exa- 
mined, is so entirely wanting in unity, that it is nearly impossi- 
ble to designate it by one common name. 

When I invited my readers to accompany me in my pilgrimage 
through these desolate and barren tracts, I dared not indicate 
with precision the goal towards which we were to tend, or the 
limits of the region we were about to explore; I dared not tell 



466 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [oHAP. XXIV. 

them that the horizon was bounded on every side by thick dark- 
ness, and that our way would be marked by little but the streams 
of blood or of mire which we were likely to meet: I dared not fore- 
warn them that they were not to expect, as a recompense for their 
labour, to behold the display of great and noble character, of sub- 
blime efforts of public virtue, or of those living sketches of man- 
ners which it is reserved for the historians of the golden ages of 
literature to trace; aided as they are by the graphic imagination 
of the poets from whom they take their subjects, and by the accu- 
rate reason of the philosophers who examined and discussed pass- 
ing events. On the contrary, I have had to offer to their considera- 
tion only degenerate or barbarous nations; while the outline it- 
self had to be borrowed from historians as degraded or as barba- 
rous. To trace the route we were about to pursue, would perhaps 
have had the effect of completely discouraging them: if, however, 
they have had the patience to follow my steps, I venture to con- 
gratulate them on having traversed this repulsive region. It was 
a road necessary to be gone over; — the inevitable path from an- 
cient to modern forms of society, from the heroism of the Greeks 
or Romans to the chivalry of the crusaders. We should be unable 
to understand either our forefathers or ourselves, were we to omit 
this period in our study of history. Heirs of a form of civilization 
completely different from our own; heirs of the most heterogene- 
ous social elements, of the most opposite recollections and feelings, 
it is imperative upon us to go back to the origin of things, and to 
behold whence we have sprung, that we may understand what we 
are. 

But though I did not venture to trace out the plan of such a 
complicated and unattractive narrative beforehand, it may not be 
inexpedient, at its termination, briefly to recall its principal fea- 
tures. The decline of Rome, after the loss of her liberty, has 
been first submitted to our observation. We have seen what had 
been the effects of three centuries of despotism upon population, 
upon wealth, upon the public mind, upon morals, and upon the 
physical force of the empire. We have seen what were the con- 
vulsions it had passed through before it was reduced so low, and 
who were the enemies that, on all hands, threatened this colossus, 
so formidable even in its weakness. We have seen that it un- 
derwent a new organization at the beginning of the fourth cen- 
tury, previous to its engaging in fresh struggles; soon after which, 
the Goths invaded the East, the Germanic nations the West, and 



CHAP. XXIV.] SUMMARY. 467 

the Tartars, led on by Attila, succeeded in finally crushing the 
power of Europe. After many dreadful convulsions, the empire 
of Rome fell, in 478; while a new Rome arose on the Bosphorus, 
and for almost a thousand years longer feebly kept alive the Ro- 
man name in a people alien from Rome, both in language, man- 
ners, and sentiments. 

After the fall of the empire of the West, we have not entirely 
neglected that of Byzantium; but our attention to its revolutions 
has diminished in proportion as their importance has declined. 
We have endeavoured carefully to examine the only brilliant 
period of the lower empire,— -that of the legislation and conquests 
of Justinian; but his immediate successors, as well as the three 
dynasties of Heraclius, Leo the Isaurian, and Basil the Mace- 
donian, have not appeared to us to merit much attention: as they 
plunged deeper and deeper into the night of the middle ages, they 
became more and more estranged from us. 

The states which rose upon the ruins of the Western empire, 
on the contrary, appeared to us to acquire increased importance 
in proportion as they came nearer to our own times. The power 
of the Goths and the Franks seemed at first nearly balanced: 
through more than two centuries we have carefully traced the 
progress of the decline of the former, and of the aggrandizement 
of the latter. We have seen it, at the height of its greatness, 
stained by countless crimes, and apparently tottering on the brink 
of inevitable destruction, at the very time when a new nation, 
which threatened the Christian world with universal subjection, 
issued forth from the deserts of Arabia. We have endeavoured to 
afford some insight into the character of this people; to explain the 
powerful springs of action, which, during the lapse of a century, 
gave them the advantage over all other nations; and have then 
sought to show how it was that those springs grew lax and 
powerless, and the Musulman so rapidly lost his formidable 
attributes. 

The struggles of the Arabs with the Europeans brought us back 
to the Franks. We have beheld new vigour imparted to their 
monarchy by the conquest of the Austrasians, and the accession 
of the Carlovingians to the throne. We have followed Charle- 
magne in his victorious career; we have seen him conquer, and 
begin to civilize. Northern Europe; but we have also marked how 
quickly a mortal feebleness and decay followed upon his brilliant 
efforts; and we have sought to explain why the new empire of the 



468 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. j^CHAP. XXIV. 

West fell even more rapidly and ignominiouslj than that of Rome. 
It is in the very midst of these two centuries of decline, that we 
have endeavoured to show how the dissolution of all the bonds 
of society had prepared the birth of new states^ how the obliga- 
tion imposed on each individual, to defend himself, had restored 
the respect due to personal courage, and, by consequence, to other 
virtues which need its alliance and support; how, in short, from 
the depths of disorder and degradation arose the principles of a 
new spirit of patriotism — a new nobility of character. After 
the year 1000, the ground is cleared; it but waits for the erection 
of the new edifice: it is, however, at the period previous to that 
in which its foundations were laid, that we have resolved to con- 
clude our task. 

Unquestionably there must always be something arbitrary in 
the choice of these resting-places in the long chain of time; — 
these knots, intended to separate, and which, on the contrary, 
often bind together, different periods. The more extensive the 
general plan that has been followed, the more complicated the 
interests that have been examined, the more impossible it be- 
comes that there should be one common catastrophe; that threads 
so various should be cut short by one common termination. 
There exists, however, at the end of the tenth century, a cause 
which would arrest our course, even had we intended to pursue 
our narrative beyond it: this is, the almost universal expectation 
then entertained, of the approaching end of the world. So 
strong was this belief, that it led the greater part of the contem- 
porary writers to lay down the pen: for awhile silence was com- 
plete; for historians cared not to write for a posterity whose ex- 
istence was so doubtful. Pious persons who had endeavoured to 
understand the Apocalypse and to determine the time of the ac- 
complishment of its prophecies, had been particularly struck 
with the twentieth chapter; where it is announced that, after the 
lapse of a thousand years, Satan would be let loose to deceive 
the nations; but that, after a little season, God would cause a 
fire to come down from heaven and devour him. The accom- 
plishment of all the awful prophecies contained in this book, ap- 
peared, therefore, to be at hand; and the end of the world was 
supposed to be indicated by the devouring fire, and by the first 
resurrection of the dead. The nearer the thousandth year from 
the birth of Christ approached, the more did panic terror take 
possession of every mind. The archives of all countries contain 



CHAP. XXIV.] SUPPOSED END OF THE WORLD. 469 

a great number of charters of the tenth century, beginning with 
these words: " Appropinquante fine mundi," (As the end of the 
world is approaching.) This almost universal belief redoubled 
the fervour of religion, opened the least liberal hands, and sug- 
gested various acts of piety, by far the greater number of which 
were donations to the clergy, of possessions which the testator 
alienated without regret from his family, to whom the universal 
destruction would render them useless. Others, however, were 
of a more meritorious nature: many enemies were reconciled^ 
many powerful men granted full pardon to those who had been 
unhappy enough to offend them^ several even gave liberty to 
their slaves, or meliorated the condition of their poor and hither- 
to slighted dependants. 

We are struck with a sort of affright at the idea of the state of 
disorganization into which the belief of the imminent approach 
of the end of the world must have thrown society. All the or- 
dinary motives of action were suspended, or superseded by con- 
trary ones; every passion of the mind was hushed, and the pre- 
sent was lost in the appalling future. The entire mass of the 
Christian nations seemed to feel that they stood in the situation 
of a condemned criminal, who has received his sentence, and 
counts the hours which still separate him from eternity. Every 
exertion of mind or body was become objectless, save the labours 
of the faithful to secure their salvation: any provision for an 
earthly futurity must have appeared absurd 5 any monument 
erected for an age which was never to arrive, would have been a 
contradiction; any historical records written for a generation ne- 
ver to arise, would have betrayed a want of faith. It is almost 
matter of surprise, that a belief so general as this appears to have 
been, did not bring about its own dreadful fulfilment; — that it 
did not transform the West into one vast convent, and, by 
causing a total cessation from labour, deliver up the human race 
to universal and hopeless famine. But, doubtless, the force of 
habit was still stronger, with many, than the disease of the ima- 
gination; besides, some uncertainty as to chronology had caused 
hesitation between two or three different periods; and though 
many charters attest " certain and evident signs," which left no 
room for doubt of the rapid approach of the end of the world, 
yet the constant order of the seasons, the regularity of the laws 
of nature, the beneficence of Providence, which continued to 
cover the earth with its wonted fruits, raised questions even in 

60 



470 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIV 

the most timid minds. At last, the extreme period fixed by the 
prophecies was passed^ the end of the world had not arrived 5 
the terror was gradually, but entirely, dissipated; and it was 
universally acknowledged, that, on this subject, the language of 
the sacred Scriptures had been misinterpreted. 

It shall also be on the threshold of the long-dreaded thou- 
sandth year that we will take our stand, to bid a last farewell to 
the first ten centuries of Christianity, and to pass judgment upon 
the general character of those nations which, after the fall of the 
ancient world, were about to lay the foundations of a new one. 
In the course of the eight centuries which we have made our pe- 
culiar study, we have, probably, been struck with the monotony 
of crime; but the nations of whom we are about to take leave, 
henceforward assume a more varied character. They were al- 
ready stamped with at least three perfectly distinct impressions, 
— the Greek spirit of erudition; the Italian spirit of liberty; the 
Frank spirit of chivalry. We will endeavour to give a slight 
idea of what was to be expected from this state^ of things, and 
shall conclude with a few words on the morality of the agea 
which have passed in review before us. 

In the tenth century, the Greeks were sole possessors of the 
inheritance of the learning and science of past ages; indeed, 
some of their works at this period prove the extent of their eru- 
dition. That of the patriarch Photius, which appears to have 
been composed at Bagdad, at a distance from his library, and 
with the sole aid of a prodigious memory, contains an analysis 
and critical remarks on two hundred and eighty books: those of 
Leo the philosopher, and his son Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 
pass in review almost every branch of human knowledge, from 
the administration of the empire, military and naval tactics, the 
ceremonies of the court, — in short, the appropriate science of 
kings, down to the most humble occupations of trade and agri- 
culture. Few books seem better constructed to show the vanity 
of erudition, and to place in strong contrast a vast extent of 
knowledge, with a total incapacity of deriving any useful results 
from it. 

The fact that this constant degeneracy of the Greeks, this an- 
nihilation of genius, and of all the nobler faculties of the mind, 
took place whilst they were still in possession of the accumulated 
treasures of the knowledge and enlightenment of the world, is 
not one of the least melancholy phenomena in the history of the 
human race. 



CHAP. XXIV.] USELESS ERUDITION OF THE GREEKS. 474 

We believe, or, at least, we assert, that civilization cannot re- 
trogradej that no step made bj the mind of man can be lost, and 
that the conquests of reason and intelligence are secured from 
the power of time bj the invention of printing. But it was not 
books that were wanting when the human race began its back- 
ward course: perhaps it was the wish to read, which books alone 
do not give 5 perhaps the power of thinkings perhaps the energy 
necessary to render thought fruitful and profitable. 

In our own days, we have beheld countries in which the press 
has been made so entirely the instrument of arbitrary power, 
that the reader turns with disgust from food which he knows or 
thinks is imbued with poison: we have seen others, where per- 
verted notions of religion inspire such a dread of all exercise of 
the reason, that the believer, surrounded by works which might 
possibly excite his doubts, trembles before the confessor who 
warns him against this forbidden fruit, and abstains from touching 
it as from some abominable crime — a crime, too, which holds out 
but few and feeble temptations. In vain has printing multiplied 
books which disclose the horrors of the inquisition, or the absurd 
barbarity of torture: it were easy to suggest some great nations, 
and some smaller communities, which are, or have been, sur- 
rounded by these books, and yet have not even been aware of 
their existence. The books of the ancients, preserved in manu- 
script, eluded, far better than our own, the hand of power: they 
excited less alarm, and were not, therefore, the object of an ever- 
vigilant censorship; nor had governments yet learned to use the 
talents of writers as weapons to be turned against society; the 
clergy had as yet laid no interdict upon reading; yet books were 
not the less without influence upon the morals and actions of 
men. 

The richest stores of books existed at Constantinople, and 
were accessible to all, in numerous libraries, both public and pri- 
vate. The labour of the copyist is, it is true, infinitely slower 
than that of the printer; but this labour had been pursued with- 
out interruption by a very numerous class of men, and on mate- 
rials more durable than those now in use, ever since the brilliant 
times of Greek literature; that is to say, for fourteen centuries, 
dating back from the year 1000. Constantinople had never been 
taken by a military force; so that all the stores of antiquity were 
preserved; while the city had been still farther enriched with 
those which wealthy land-owners, heads of convents, cathedrals 



47^ FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. []cHAP. X XIV 

and schools, had brought from the provinces invaded by enemies^ 
and the high price of books had enhanced the care for their pre* 
servation. Knowledge, too, was still honoured; and the know* 
ledge of the time consisted entirely in scholarship. Commenta- 
tors and scholiasts continued to flourish in regular succession; 
their writings are sufficient proofs of the prodigious extent of 
their reading. All that the sublimest meditations of philosophy, 
the noblest inspirations of liberty, had suggested to the founders 
of Grecian glory; all the lessons afforded by the histories of 
Athens and of Rome, were within their reach. The citizens of 
Constantinople might read in their own language the effusion of 
republican sentiments, poured forth from the breasts of men in- 
spired and elevated by the enjoyment of all the rights of a free 
country; their own manners, their own customs, their national 
recollections, were of farther use to them in explaining what is 
occasionally obscure to us; but the heart to understand was want- 
ing. The erudite furnished, with the minutest accuracy, all the 
details of the mythology, the geography, the manners, the cus- 
toms, of the ancients; they were thorough masters of the lan- 
guage of their great progenitors, of the figures of their rhetoric, 
of the whole mechanism of their versification, the ornaments of 
their poetry;- — the spirit alone escaped them, and the spirit al- 
ways escaped them. They knew how many thousands of citi- 
zens had lived, happy and illustrious, in each state of that very 
Greece w4iere they now beheld a few hundreds of slaves; they 
could point out the exact spot where the brave companions of 
Miltiades and Themistocles had repulsed the countless forces of 
the great king; they knew each of the laws on which depended 
that balance of power by which the dignity of man was upheld, 
in those admirable constitutions of antiquity: yet neither the 
misery of their country, nor the destructive invasions of their 
neighbours, nor the shameful tyranny of the eunuchs of the 
court, had once inspired them widi the idea of searching for 
practical lessons in that antiquity, the historical details of which 
they knew by heart. Study, with them, had no other aim than 
to enrich the memory; their powers of thought lay dormant, or, 
if they were ever awakened, it was only to plunge into intermi- 
nable discussions on theology; utility appeared to them almost a 
profanation of science:— a memorable example, and by no means 
a solitary one, of the uselessness of the intellectual inheritance 
of past ages, if the generation on whom it descends want the 



GHAP. XXIV.] USELESS ERUDITION OF THE GREEKS. 473 

vigour necessary to turn it to account. It is not books that we 
want to preserve, it is the mind of man 5 not the receptacles of 
thought, but the faculty of thinking. Were it necessary to 
choose between the whole experience which has been acquired 
and collected from the beginning of time, the whole rich store of 
human wisdom, and the more unschooled activity of the human 
mind, the latter ought, without hesitation, to be preferred. This 
is the precious and living germe which we ought to watch over, 
to foster, to guard from every blight. This alone, if it re- 
main uninjured, will repair all losses^ while, on the contrary, 
mere literary wealth will not preserve one faculty, nor sustain 
one virtue. 

For more than ten centuries the Greeks of Byzantium pos- 
sessed models in every kind, yet they did not suggest to them 
one original idea; they did not even give birth to a copy worthy 
of coming after these master-pieces. Thirty millions of Greeks, 
the surviving depositaries of ancient wisdom, made not a single 
step during twelve centuries in any one of the social sciences. 
There was not a citizen of free Athens who was not better skilled 
in the science of politics than the most erudite scholar of Byzan- 
tium; their morality was far inferior to that of Socrates; their 
philosophy to that of Plato and Aristotle, upon whom they were 
continually commenting. They made not a single discovery in 
any one of the physical sciences, unless we except the lucky ac- 
cident which produced the Greek fire. They loaded the ancient 
poets with annotations, but they were incapable of treading in 
their footsteps; not a comedy or a tragedy was written at the foot 
of the ruins of the theatres of Greece; no epic poem was produced 
by the worshippers of Homer; not an ode, by those of Pindar. 
Their highest literary efforts do not go beyond a few epigrams, 
collected in the Greek Anthology, and a few romances. Such 
is the unworthy use which the depositaries of every treasure of 
human wit and genius made of their v/ealth, during an uninter- 
rupted course of transmission for more than a thousand years. 

The Italians, like the Greeks, might have been in possession 
of a store of literary riches bequeathed by their ancestors; but 
they had neglected them, and no longer knew their value. But, 
on the other hand, they had the life and activity wanting in their 
neighbours. In the chaos of the middle ages, their minds ac- 
quired force and fire; — incalnere animi — the apt motto of the 
learned Muratori, who has so much contributed to introduce or- 



4^4 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIV. 

der into that chaos. A strong and universal fermentation was 
forcing effete and inert matter into new life. The expeditions of 
the three Othos into Italy are but short episodes in the history of 
that country; their stay there was short; they came as foreigners 
and conquerors, and the most extensive views, the highest virtues, 
in a foreign ruler, cannot prevent the degradation and degeneracy 
which are the inevitable consequences of his dominion. But, in 
spite of their German armies, — almost under the swords of their 
soldiers, — the republican spirit sprang up on every hand. The 
Italians convinced that they had nothing to hope from the empire, 
sought support in themselves; they formed associations; they 
promised mutual aid; and no sooner were they united for their 
common defence, no sooner had they entered info so noble a 
league, than they began to awaken to feelings of disinterestedness, 
patriotism, and love of Liberty; and these generous sentiments 
were big with the germe of every virtue. 

Venice, perhaps at that tim.e too nearly assimilated to a mo- 
narchical governmentby the grant of prerogatives to her doge which 
in succeeding ages she was constantly trying to limit, neverthe- 
less preserved the seeds of a democracy in the haughty indepen- 
dence of her sailors: it was to her navy that she owed her do- 
minion over the Adriatic Sea, and the reduction of all the cities 
of Istria and Dalmatia under her sovereignty, in the year 997*. 
At the same time, Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi, repulsing the at- 
tacks of the Lombard princes and of the Saracens, as they not 
long after repulsed those of the Normans, strengthened their au- 
thority, covered the ocean with their vessels, collected within 
their narrow territory an immense population, and wealth enough 
to excite the envy of Europe; and, in short, gave the world an 
example of the true dignityof commerce, and of the wise alliance 
of order and liberty in a well-regulated city. Farther to the 
north, two other maritime republics, Pisa and Genoa, which 
were probably also indebted to the Greeks for their municipal in- 
stitutions, their safety from the barbarians, and their infant pros- 
perity, appeared similarly animated with that spirit of enterprise, 
that daring courage, which were necessary to the existence of 
commerce in an age of disorder and violence. Their merchants 
traded in armed vessels, and were able and ready to defend the 
treasures which they transported from land to land: their union 
formed their strength, and love of their country never deserted 
them in their most distant voyages. They made it their habitual 



CHAP. XXIV.] LIBERTY OF THE ITALIAN CITIES. 475 

endeavour to inspire princes and nobles with respect for the name 
of citizen, — a name despised in courts^ thej conceived and ex- 
emplified to the world a new sort of greatness, wholly different 
from those which had hitherto obtained consideration. They 
were thus preparing for those conquests over the Saracens, which 
a few years later they effected in Sardinia and the Balearic Islesj 
and for the powerful assistance which in less than a century they 
afforded to the crusaders. Indeed, at the time of the first cru- 
sade, these two cities alone, did more for what was looked upon as 
the cause of Christianity, than the powerful empires who buried 
half their population in the sands of Syria and Egypt. 

Nor were the cities in the interior of the country— -in Lombar- 
dy and Tuscany — strangers to this newly kindled spirit. They 
also had built up their walls, and armed their militia, to repel the 
ravages of the Hungarians; they already commanded the respect 
of those very neighbours v/ho had styled themselves their masters. 
Milan, Pavia, Florence, Lucca, Bologna, refer the origin of their 
independence and the memory of their first wars to this epoch j 
several of their ancient buildings give evidence also that the arts 
revived almost at the same time with liberty. Hardly had their 
citizens made a trial of their arms, when they strove to produce 
within their walls an image of that republic of Rome whose me- 
mory was at all times so dear and so glorious to Italians. Annual 
consuls, named by the people, were charged with the command 
of the army and the administration of justice; the citizens were 
divided into tribes which usually took their names from the gates 
of the several cities; the whole people assembled in the public 
square and were consulted on all important occasions. There 
they met to determine or declare war, or to elect their magis- 
trates; while a senate, or council of credenze, was appointed to 
guard the public welfare by their prudence. 

The happy results of this new dawn of Italian liberty were 
long thwarted, long retarded, by the fierce wars of the priesthood 
and the empire: still, the principle of vitality thus reinfused into 
the human race was so powerful, that each of the new republics 
thenceforward produced more great and illustrious citizens, more 
virtuous men, more patriotism and talents, than can be found in 
the long and monotonous annals of great empires. A century 
and a half after the point of time at which we have paused, the 
Lombard league ventured to set limits to arbitrary power; to raise 
the authority of law above that of arms; and to oppose its citizens 



476 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. j^CHAP. XXIV. 

to the knights of Germany, led on by the valiant Frederic Bar- 
barossa. At the same time, these republics afforded a fresh proof 
of the eternal alliance between moral and intellectual beauty. 
A new language was assuming shape and consistency, and even 
before it became sufficiently perfect to express the noble senti- 
ments working in the souls of the people, sculpture and architec- 
ture, — themselves languages, — revealed to the astonished view 
of the barbarous spectator the lofty conceptions hidden in the 
Italian breast. Three centuries had elapsed since the year 1000; 
but of these barely one had been a century of liberty to Florence, 
when Dante appeared, and claimed for genius as lofty a place in 
letters, as it had gained in arts, in arms, and in the councils of 
the republics. 

With the exception of some cities in the south of Gaul, and in 
Spain, we must not look, throughout the rest of Europe, for that 
noble spirit of liberty which was the harbinger of siich glorious 
days to Italy. But another principle, another sentiment, not 
without grandeur and elevation, pervaded the countries which had 
made part of the empire of the West, and gave a new character to 
the approaching ages. This was the spirit of chivalry which dis- 
tinguished the Franks; not the chivalry of romance, but of history 
— the exaltation of the sentiment of force and of personal inde- 
pendence. 

The spirit of chivalry was peculiar to the nobles; it was in 
them alone that, at the period we are contemplating, the senti- 
ment of the dignity of man began to revive amongst the inhabi- 
tants of the West. We should, however, have a very false con- 
ception of that barbarous age, were we to attach to the word no- 
bility those ideas of purity of descent, and antiquity of race, 
which vanity, aided by the progress of civilization, has since 
produced or cherished. There was but little thought of genea- 
logy, when family names did not exist; but little thought of the 
glory redounding from the exploits of ancestors, when there was 
no history; but little thought of claims to nobility, when all 
writings or parchments excited the contempt and suspicion of 
knights unskilled to read, and who trusted no evidence but that 
of their sword. Nobility was but the possession of territorial 
property, and to property, power was always united; when either 
the one or the other was transferred by usurpations or by bastar- 
dy, then were the usurper and the bastard admitted into the ranks 
of the nobility. 



CHAP. XXIV.] SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY. 4.77 

Under the early Carlovingians the nobles had sunk into the 
lowest degradation; they had desisted from the exercise of arms; 
abandoning the task of defending the kingdom, they soon became 
unable to defend themselves; but, from the time that the govern- 
ment ceased to afford protection to any order of society, they found 
in their wealth a means of defence and security, not in the reach 
of any other class of men. It is a remarkable fact, that the pro- 
portion between the means of attack and of defence always varies 
in an inverse ratio to the progress of civilization. The more bar- 
barous the times, the more successful is art m protecting man 
from the aggressions of his fellow-men; on the other hand, the 
greater the progress made by society, the more do the means of 
destruction exceed those of preservation. The wealth which be- 
longed to the noble, and which gave him the entire disposition of 
the industry of his vassals, enabled him, in the first place, to put 
his own place of abode in a state of security from every attack. 
But he did not content himself with making his castle an inacces- 
sible retreat; he soon protected his person by moveable fortifica- 
tions, and, encased in his cuirass, he acquired an immense supe- 
riority in physical strength over all poorer than himself, and could 
brave the resentment of those who were no longer on an equali- 
ty with him, though they might surround him. 

The chances were hardly one in a thousand that the knight, 
covered with a coat of mail; with a cuirass jointed so as to cor- 
respond to every movement of the body; with a buckler which he 
could oppose to every blow; with a casque which, when its vizor 
was lowered, enclosed the whole head, could ever be accessible 
to the sword of a low-born vassal. In combats with men of an 
inferior class, the knight dealt death around him without running 
any risk of receiving it; and this very disproportion decided the 
respective values of the life of a noble, and of a man of mean ex- 
traction. A single knight was of more importance than hundreds 
of the plebeians who were unable to offer him the slightest resis- 
tance. But, to obtain full enjoyment of this advantage, besides 
the necessity of an immense expenditure, an expenditure equal 
to the cost of arming four or five hundred peasants, he was obliged 
to keep his strength and address in constant exercise, and to inure 
his limbs to the weight and constraint of the armour which he 
could hardly ever lay aside. The baron was forced to renounce 
all exercises of the mind, all cultivation of the understanding; to 
spend his life on horse-back, with harness on his back, and in- 

61 



478 FALL OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE. [chAP. XXlV. 

cessantly engaged in military exercises. He was thus rendered 
an agile, vigorous, and invulnerable soldier, and far exceeded 
in physical strength and ability the hundreds of retainers by 
'whom he was surrounded. He could safely arm them, lead them 
to battle under his banner, and yet remain their master, since 
their combined strength was not equal to his. 

The immense advantage which the impregnable castles and 
the knightly armour gave to nobles over rotiiriers, was produc- 
tive of a great moral evil, by destroying all feelings of brother- 
hood and equality between man and man. But the pride and 
consciousness of power with which this same armour inspired the 
knight when face to face with his equals; the sentiment of inde- 
pendence which it tended to nourish; the confidence in his own 
importance and in his own rights, with which he became imbued, 
ennobled the national character, and gave to the Franks, what 
they had wanted in the preceding century, the consciousness of 
the dignity of man. Rights equal, independent, and maintained 
in all their plenitude, soon gave birth to laws provided for their 
defence, and to a social order calculated for their protection. 
Tliis new order of things, which guarantied the liberty of the 
nobles while it secured due subordination on their part; which 
sanctioned the reciprocal engagements between lord and vassal, 
was organized towards the end of the tenth century, under the 
name of the Feudal System. This system maintained itself for 
nearly three centuries (to the end of the thirteenth,) and, so long 
as it lasted, produced, in one class of society, the nobles, several 
effects, which it might have been imagined were to be expected 
from a republican organization alone. It restored to honour and 
consideration virtues absolutely exiled from the earth during the 
preceding ages, — above all, respect for truth, and loyalty to en- 
gagements; it refined and reformed morals; it confided to the 
honour of the stronger sex the protection and defence of the 
weaker; lastly, it dignified obedience, by placing it on the only 
honourable basis it can own — the liberty and the interests of all. 
Great deeds were done, and noble characters were formed by 
this republic of gentlemen, constituted by the feudal system^ 
but the imagination of romance-writers alone could look for the 
courtesy and elegance which are the charm of society under 
these rough and austere forms. The haughtiness of the knight 
or baron inclined him to a solitary life: without the walls of his 
castle, whenever he was no longer the first, whenever he received 



CHAP. XXIV.] ANTAGONIST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 479 

the law instead of giving it, his pride was wounded or alarmed. 
Chivalrous life was a life of mutual repulsion; and, with the ex- 
ception of the rare occasions when the knight was summoned, 
to the courts of justice, to the armies of his suzerain for the 
space of forty days, or to tournaments, equals in station avoided 
each other; neither friendship nor social pleasures were made 
for those times. 

The new period of history which opens on us after the year 
1000, promises a more abundant harvest both of v'r ues and of 
high and brilliant exploits; we may reasonably anticipate more 
strength and nobility of character, both amongst the republicans 
of Italy, amongst the knights of France and Germany, and 
amongst the crusaders. It will, doubtless, be asked, whence it 
happens that this advantage is well-nigh absolutely denied to the 
eight centuries we have surveyed; whence it comes, that, 
amongst a number of nations differing so widely in their cus- 
toms, opinions, and social condition, — frequently agitated and 
convulsed by revolutions, — elevated characters are so rare; that 
virtues are so thinly scattered, that crime is so rev^olting. It 
will be demanded, what there was then in common between the 
pagan emperors, the Christians, and the Musulmans; between 
the Greeks, the Latins, the Arabs, and the Franks; why perfidy 
was equally frequent in the chiefs of the armed democracies who 
conquered Gaul, or in the vicegerents of the prophet in Arabia, 
as in absolute monarchs. 

We answer, that a grand and fundamental difference separates 
those governments whose spring of action is virtue, from those 
which are moved by selfishness. The former, which exalt man, 
— which propose as their aim his moral education, as well as his 
immediate prosperity, — -are rare exceptions in the course of ages: 
the latter, M'hich degrade mankind, are by far the greater num- 
ber; and among them we may class all those which subsisted 
during the earlier portion of the middle ages, notwithstanding 
their almost endless variety. 

In the republics of antiquity, in every constitution worthy of 
our admiration, it has been the main endeavour of the legislators 
to produce and foster noble sentiments in the minds of the citi- 
zen; to raise his moral dignity; to secure to him that virtue 
which is dependent on civil institutions, rather than the prospe- 
rity which always remains subject to chance. To attain this 
end, they have held up to every individual a subject for noble 



480 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [cHAP. XXIV 

thoughts and generous purposes; an object far more exalted than 
self, and one to which, they taught him, self was to be sacrificed. 
This object of the devoted attachment of the ancients, was their 
country — the united body of their fellow-citizens. Each man 
lear led to feel how infinitely grander and more important than 
his own interest was this interest of the whole; each man felt 
that every faculty, every effort of his M^as due to the body of 
which he had the honour to form a part; and the sacrifice of self 
to what is of greater worth than self, is the one grand principle 
of all virtue. 

In all the governments, on the contrary, whose struggles have 
occupied us during the course of the centuries we have just sur- 
veyed, no political principle or sentiment was raised above per- 
sonal interest: those in whose hands power resided had no object 
but their own advantage; those who had framed the institutions 
of society had been actuated by none but self-regarding motives. 
The saying of a modern despot, " The state is myself," has been 
often repeated; but Louis XIV. only expressed the principle of 
every government whose moving power is egotism. But wo to 
people and to princes, when the despot of Rqme or of Constan- 
tinople said, " The state is myself;" when the armed democracy 
of the Franks, in the sixth century ,^ — when the prelates of the 
ninth, — when the counts and castellans of the tenth, said, '*The 
state is ourselves!" And honour to the depositaries of power, 
be they constitutional kings, senators, or citizens assembled to 
choose their magistrates, when they say, " We belong to the 
state," and when they act in conformity with this profession! 

If we look for heroism in the eight centuries whose history we 
have traced, we may, perhaps, find it in the martyrs of the various 
persecuted sects of religion, who sacrificed themselves for what 
they believed to be the truth; we may find it in Belisarius, who, 
long after Rome had become enslaved, had still faith in Roman 
virtue— still feit that his country had a right to all his services; 
we may find it in the first followers of Mahomet, who braved 
every danger to spread the doctrine of the unity of God. But 
all the rest, whether captains or soldiers, whether conquerors or 
conquered, fought only for themselves; for their own interest, 
their own advancement. They might be brave, they might be 
skilful; but they liad no pretensions to heroism. In like manner, 
kings, ministers, legislators, the founders and the destroyers of 
empires, might display extensive views, profound policy, a large 



CHAP. XXIV.J ANTAGONIST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. 481 

acquaintance with men, or with the timesj they might even oc- 
casionally do good, and, in doing it, might evince genius or pru- 
dencej but they did not exhibit virtue, — for the word virtue im- 
plies self-devotion, or self-sacrifice^ and they saw but themselves: 
they sought but their own glory, their own greatness, their own 
security in power, the gratification of their own passions^ they 
sacrificed not themselves to others, but others to themselves; and 
they esteemed humanity, loyalty, all the virtues, all the nobler af- 
fections, of less weight than their personal interests. 

This fundamental contrast between virtue and egotism — a 
contrast which abundantly suffices to mark the classification of 
diiferent governments, as well as individual actions — does not 
destroy the philosophical application of the principle of utility. 
As it is true that morality is the principle of all wisdom, it is ne- 
cessarily true that the greatest welfare of all is the point towards 
which both the virtues of all, and the self- regarding calculations 
of all, equally tend; that, if we abstract individual interests, the 
aberrations of passion and the influence of circumstances, the 
two roads followed by virtue and by egotism meet and unite at 
the same point. Thus it is that virtue itself may, in some sort, 
be reduced to a matter of personal calculation; thus it is that we 
can and ought to demonstrate that the sacrifices it commands are 
in accordance with. the general interest. Self-devotion to what 
may cause the bane, and not the good of mankind, is virtue gone 
astray; the heroism which sacrifices itself for an end which ought 
to be avoided, is a dangerous heroism. The moralist and the 
philosopher may be able to appreciate virtue and heroism so mis- 
directed, according to the principle of utility, — to rectify their 
direction towards the greatest good of the species. But this prin- 
ciple, which, abstractedly, determines what is good in itself, is 
not fitted to become the immediate spring of our actions, lest ge- 
neral should give way to personal utility. The governments which 
have given a vigorous moral education to the human race have 
begun by showing that the good of all was their object — that its 
promotion was the duty of every member of the society. While 
they were inspiring the citizens with this great idea, they called 
the good of all, their country, and taught them devotion to its 
cause. Rulers like those who have formed the subject of our 
inquiry, actuated by no other desire than that of retaining a 
power which they could turn to their own advantage, — of di- 



482 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. [OHAP. XXIV. 

viding among themselves the wealth and the pleasures which that 
power enabled them to engross, — had no purposes or objects 
which they could hold forth to the examination or the imitation 
of mankind; thej acknowledged no public utility — the basis of 
public virtue. Thej could not, therefore, speak to their subjects 
of their dutie.«, but only of their personal interests, — of punish- 
ments or rewards; and, if they occasionally borrowed the words 
country, honour, or virtue, (which, though without meaning to 
them, had, as they saw, such mighty influence over their neigh- 
bours,) those words lost their significancy, and produced only a 
transient illusion amongst their subjects. 

We have now closed our review of these long and tremendous 
convulsions — of this desolating revolution in the condition of 
Europe. We have seen the human race sink from the most 
brilliant period of glory to that of the most profound degrada- 
tion; from the period which produced a system of legislation the 
model of all succeeding lawgivers, down to the most complete 
absence of law; from the reign of justice to that of brute force. 
All that constittjtes the grace and the happiness of civilized so- 
ciety — ^poetry, philosophy, moral and theological speculatiim, the 
fine arts, the domestic arts — all, after having shone with meri- 
dian splendour, had been utterly quenched, destroyed, forgotten. 
The combined efforts of men seemed inadequate not only to the 
production of any thing new, but even to the preservation of 
what actually existed. 

It is at this point of complete dissolution of all the elements 
of society that other historians must take up the thread of hu- 
man affairs: it will be for them to show men once more conscious 
of the tie that binds them to their country; once more devoting 
their lives to the service of their fellow-citizens, and continually 
gaining new virtues, from self-sacrifice. 

The knowledge of what had been swept away before their 
time will, perhaps, enable us more clearly to understand all that 
they had to endure and to achieve; but the spectacle of such 
vast and sweeping destruction suggests other thoughts, more im- 
mediately applicable to ourselves. All that we possess at this 
day was also possessed by the Roman world; and this we have 
beheld crumble into dust. The waters that once covered the 
earth may overflow it again. Violence was but the secondary 
cause of the ruin; the vices of self-interest were the primary 



CHAP. XXIV.] CONCLUSION. 483 

cause: they undermined the dam of the torrent, which, when 
once let loose, nothing could stop. "When the hour was come in 
which man no longer preferred country before self; when virtue, 
honour, liberty, were rare prerogatives, without which he learned 
to exist; then did a world as fair, as glorious, as our own, crum- 
ble away: nor would it be easy to assign a reason why the decay 
of those virtues on which the strength of man is built, should not 
once more be succeeded by as complete a ruin of his works — as 
total an eclipse of his glory. 



INDEX. 



Abbaside khaliphs, 339. 

Abbasides, the, dynasty of Bag-dad 
founded by them, 386. 

Abdallah, father of Mahommed, 
g-uardian of the Kaaba and presi- 
dent of the republic of Mecca, 
253. 

Abd-al-Motalleb, g-randfather of Ma- 
hommed, 253. 

Abderraliman, King- of Corduba, 
351. 

Abderrahman, g-overnor of Spain, 
defeats the duke of Aquitaine in 
two battles, ravag-es Perig'ord, 
Sainlonge, Angoumois, and Poi- 
tou, 302. 

Abdul- Malek, 285. 

Abu-Musa, 338. 

Abu Obeidah conquers 83^-13, 269. 
His summons addressed to the city 
of Jerusalem, 272. His death, 
273. 

Abu-Sophyan, 259. 

Abu-Taleb, 259. 

Abubekr, father-in-law of Mahom- 
med, 260. Elected under the 
title of khaliph, or lieutenant of 
Mahommed, 268. His frug'ality 
and simplicity; appoints Omar his 
successor; his death, 269. His in- 
structions to his g-enerals, 270. 

Abul-Abbas al Saffah, 286. 

Abul-Abbas, the first of the Abba- 
sides, massacre of the Ommiades 
by him, 339. 

Abul-Moslem, author of the "Vo- 
cation of the Abbasides," 339. 
Abulpharaj, 278. 

Abyssinia, 55. 

Actium, the battle of, 42. 

Adalgis, son of Desiderio, flight of, 

to Constant nople, 319. 
Adelheid, empress of Otho I., 460. 



Adrian, the emperor, his reign from 
117 to 138,46. 

Adrian L, pope, his ambition, 325. 

Adrian 11., pope, 382. 

Adrianople, the battle of, 105. 

^g-idius, count of Soissons, 161. 

JEtius, a patrician, chosen by Pla- 
cidia, to direct her councils and 
her armies; his influence in Italy 
and Roman Gaul, 144. His per- 
fidy to count Boniface, 144. Go- 
verns the West in the name of 
Valentinian III., 150. His efforts 
to arrest the progress of Attila in 
Gaul, 150. Obtains a victory 
over him on the plains of Cha- 
lons-sur-Marne, 151. His death, 
156. 

Africa, extent and prosperity of all 
the provinces of, 33. Barbaric 
tribes of, 60. Subject to the 
children of Nabal the Moor, 121. 
State of, 140. The conquest of, 
by the Vandals, 145. War in, for 
restoring- the legitimate succession 
to the throne of, 197. The con- 
quest of, by BeHsarius, 199. Ruin 
of, after the recall of Belisarius, 
199. Governed by an exarch, 206. 
Invaded by tlie Gsetuli and the 
Moors, 215. The conquest of, by 
Akbah, lieutenant of the khaliph 
Moaviah, 297. 

Agathias, a Greek writer, 191. 
Agila, king of the Ostrogoths, 182. 
Aglabides^ 340. 
Almoin, a monk of St. Germain des 

Pres, 376. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 317. A school for 
religious music established at, by 
Charlemagne, 328. Comitia ofj 
348. Sack of, by the Northmen, 
374. 

62 



486 



Aiznadin, the battle of, the fate of 
the Roman empire in Asia decided 
by, 273. 

Akbah, lieutenant of the khaliph 
Moaviah, conquers Africa, 297. 

Alain, surnamed the Great, crowned 
king- of Britany, 396. 

Alan, 137. 

Alans, the, the fii-st Tartar race known 
to the Romans, 69. Retreat of 
into the mountains of Gallicia, 143. 

Alaric I,, king- of the Visig-oths, in- 
vades Greece, 122. Appointed 
master-g-eneral of the infantiy in 
eastern Illyricum, 123. Invades 
Italy, 1 24. Is defeated at Polien- 
tia, 125. Crosses the Alps, and 
arrives before the g'ates of Rome, 
130. Deposes Attalus, aFid again 
offers peace to Honorius, 132. 
Taking- and sack of Jiome by, 132. 
Clemency of, 132. His death, 132. 

Alaric II,, kingof the Visigotlis, 163. 
Killed at the battle of Vougle, 
169. 

Alboin, romantic story of, 212. 

His conquest of the Gepids in 566, 
212. He marries Rosamunde, prin- 
cess of the Gepidse, 213. He in- 
vades Italy, 213. Assassinatc-d by 
the orders of Rosamunde, 216. 

Alcuin, tlie preceptor of CLarle- 
mag-ne, 315. 

Alemanni, or Swabians, 184. 

Aleppo, 245. 

Alexandria, 276. Sieg-e of, 277. 
Alexandrian library, 278. 

Alfred the Great, coronation of, in 
872, 405. Succeeds to the throne 
of Wessex, 415. Defeat of, by 
the Danes, 416. His concealment 
at ^theling--ey, 417. His charac- 
ter and accomplishments, 417. 
Visits the Danish camp in disg-uise, 
419. His reappearance, at the 
head of a Saxon army, 420. De- 
feats Hasting-s, on the coast of 
Kent, 421. His leg-islation, 422. 
His reforms in law and politics, 422. 
His learning- and love of letters, 
423. His death, 424. 

Al-Hacam, 339. 

Ali, cousin and vizier of Mahommed, 
259. Proclaimed khaliph, 281. 
Opposition to, 281. Deposition 
of, considered illeg-al, 282. As- 
sassination of, 283. 

AUemans, the, 75. Defeat of, at the 
battle of Tolbiac, 165, 



Alphonso II., surnamed the Chaste, 
king of Oviedo, 351. 

Almanzor, 340. 

Amalaric, king of the Visigoths, 
establishes his residence at Nar- 
bonne, 181. 

Amalasonta, daughter of Theodoric, 
181. Marriage of, with Theodo- 
tus, 201. Assassination of, 201. 

Ambiza, governor of Spain, 302. 

Ambrose, St., archbishop of Milan, 
HI. 

Ambrosian chant, the origin of, 112. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, his account of 
the last words of Julian, 94. 

Amru conquers Egyjjt, 276. 

Anastasius, the emperor, 194. 

Anatolhis, 95. 

Andoveia, queen of Chilperic, exile 
and execution of, 220. 

Anegrai, the convent of, 409. 

Angles, the, 407. 

Anglo-Saxons, the, 408. 

Antharic, king of the Lombards, 216. 

Anthony, St., 61. 

Antioch destroyed by an earthquake 
in 526, 194. Submission of, to the 
Musiilmans during the campaign 
of 638, 254. 

Antistius, Labt o,the juris-consult, 45. 

Antonia, the wife of Belisarius, her 
character, 197. 

Antoninus Pjus, emperor, reign of, 
(from 138 to 161,) 46. 

Apamea, the city of, reduced to ashes 
by the Persians, 160. 

Apismar, Augustus, 295. 

Arabia, the peninsula of, 32. Imper- 
fectly known to the Romans; its 
extent, 62. The conquest of, by 
Mahommed, 262. 

Arabs, character of the, 249. The 
sheik of the, 250. Genealogy of; 
hereditary vengeance of, 251. Poe- 
try and eloquence of, 252. Nation- 
al rehgion, 253. Successes of, 273, 
Cultivation of science and letters 
among them, 289. 

Arbogastes, general of the Franks, 
orders the assassination of Valenti- 
nian II., 114. 

Arcadius, emperor of the East, imbe- 
cility of, 119. Demands peace of 
Alaric, and purchases it by ap- 
pointing him master-general of the 
infantry in eastern Illyricum, 123. 
His death, 140. 

Arcadius, a senator of Auvergne, the 
confidential agent of Childebert, 
188. 



487 



Ardaric, king of the Gepidae, 148. 

Aregunde, one of the wives of Clo- 
tliaire, 189. 

Arense, 34. 

Arians, their doctrine, 87. Con- 
demned, and their books com- 
mitted to the flames at the council 
of Nice, 88. 

Arius, an Alexandrian priest, founder 
of the sect calltd the Arians, 87. 

Arimans, 233. 

Armenia, the conques't of, by the 
Parthians, 65. Becomes subject 
to Persia, 100. 

Armenians, character of the, 65. 
Their prosperity under Tiridates, 
65. 

Armorica, or little Britain, abandoned 
by the Komans, forms a Celtic 
league, 136. The confederated 
towns of, become incorporated 
with the Franks, 1. 166. 

Arnulf, duke of Carinthia, 389. 

Arnulf, the emperor, death of, 441. 

Arsacides, 64. 

Artaxata, the capital of Armenia, 65. 

Artaxerxes, founder of the dynasty 
of the Sassanides, 64. His vic- 
tories, 65. 

Arthur, king, 407. 

Ascaric and Regais, 79. 

Asia, massacre of the Gothic hostages 
in, 105. 

Astolfo, king of the Lombards, 312. 

Ataulphus (Adolf,) king of the Visi- 
goths, his reconciliation with the 
Romans, 133. His marriage with 
Placidia, sister of Honorius, 134. 
Assassiimted at Barcelona by one 
of his own domestics, 142. 

Athalaric, king of the Ostrogoths, 
Ihl. Death of, 201, 

Athanagild, king- of Spain, 298. 

Athanasius, St., archbishop of Alex- 
andria, opposes Constantius and 
the Arians, 89. 

Athens, 123. Abolition of the 
schools of, 193- 

Atlas, Mount, 60. 

Attalus, a praetorian prefect, chosen 
emperor by the senate, 132. Is 
deposed by Alaric, 132. 

Attila, the scourge of God, king of 
the Huns, 147. His treaty with 
Theodosiusir.,147. Subdues the 
entire of North Europe and 
Asia, 148. Defeats the Greeks 
in three pitched battles, 149. He 
cros^s the Rhine and enters Gaul, 
150. He bums the city of Metz, 



150. Is defeated in the battle of 
Chalons-sur-Marne, 151. Invades 
upper Italy, 152. His death, and 
fall of his empire, 153. 

Augustine, St., 145. 

Augustus (Octavius,) period of his 
reign from 30 b. c. to 14 a. d. 42. 

Aurelian, emperor, elected by the 
soldiery; he subjugates the East, 
and leads Zenobia captive, 53. 

xVurelian, a Gaul, the Christian advi- 
ser of Clovis, 164. 

Austrasia, progress of aristocracy in, 
221. 

Avars, the, 213. Occupy and lay 
waste the whole of the European 
continent, 246. 

A Vitus, St., archbishop of Vienne, 
166. His letter to Gondebert, 
king of Burg-undy, 186. 

Ayesha, wife of Mahommed, 257. 
Taken prisoner at the battle of the 
Camel, 281. 

Baderic, king of the Thuringians, 
184. 

Bagdad, foundation of, 2*^6. Splen- 
dour of the palace of, contrasted 
with the simphcity of the early 
khaliphs, 286. Decline of the 
khaliphat of, 426. Introduction 
oftlie Turks into, 427. 

Eahram, a Persian general, his wars 
with the Turks and Romans, 243.. 
Defeat and death of, 244. 

Buian, the khan oftlie Avars, 242. 

Balasch, king of Persia, 174. 

Barbary, 145. 

Baronius, cardinal, 83. 

Basil I., founder of the Macedonian 
empire, 4-28. His origin, obtains 
the title of Augustus, 428. His 
wise administration, 429. His con- 
quests in southern Italy, 429. 
Disputes the claim of Louis II. to 
the title of emperor of the West, 
430. 

Basilica, the, compilation of, 429. 

Basra, foundation of, 275. 

Bavaria, union of, with the rest of 
Germany, 325. 

Bavarians, 184. 

Bedouin, the, 250. 

Belgium, 32. 

Belisarius, 191. His early life, 197. 
Chosen by Justinian to head the 
expeditions against the Vandals, 
198. His victory over the Van- 
dals, 199. Conquers Africa, 200. 
Is recalled from Africa, and re- 



488 



INDEX. 



ceives orders to prepare for the 
conquest of Italy, 201. Lands in 
Sicily, his humanity and modera- 
tion, he besieges Naples, 202. Oc- 
cupies Rome, 204. Sent to op- 
pose Totila, recalled a second time, 
205. His victory over the Bulg-a- 
rians near Constantinople, 207. 
The fears and jealousy of Justi- 
nian excited by it, 207. His 
death, 207. 

Benevento, the duke of, 352. 

Berbers, 60. 

Berea, a city of Syria, 245. 

Bereng-er I. crowned king" of Lom- 
bardy in 890, 396. Proclaimed 
king of Italy in 888, and emperor 
in 915; his character, 430. As- 
sassination of, 431. 

Bereng-er II. deposed by Otho I. in 
960, 451. 

Berenger, count of Rennes, 435. 

Bernhard, king of Italy, confirmed 
in the possession of his kingdom, 
by liis uncle Louis le Debonnaire, 
343. Revolt of, 346. His tragi- 
cal fate, 347. 

Bernhard, duke of Septimania, his 
influence at the court of Louis le 
Debonnaire, 349. 

Bertha, mother of Charlemagne, 318. 

Berthar, king of the Thunngians, as- 
sassinated by his brother Herman- 
frid, 184. 

Blanche, queen of Louis V., 439. 

Bleda assassinated by his brother At- 
tila, 147. 

Bobbio, the convent of, 409. 

Boethius, author of '* De Consola- 
tione Philosojjhiae," 179. Con- 
demned and executed by order of 
Theodoric, 179. 

Boniface, count, general of the Ro- 
mans in Africa, 144. Chosen to 
direct the councils and armies of 
Placidia, 144. Is driven to rebel- 
lion by the perfidy of ^tius, 144. 
Sends an invitation to Genser.c, 
king of the Vandals, to cross over 
to Africa, 145. His death, 146. 

Bordeaux burned by the Northmen, 
374. 

Boson, count of Burgundy, elected to 
the crown of France in 897; his 
speech to the council of Mantaille, 
393. 

Bosra, the siege of, 272. 

Bretons, 351. 

Britain, extent of, 33. The Roman 
legions withdrawn from, 134. The 



cities called on to defend them- 
selves, 135. The Celtic language 
preserved in, 136. Abandoned by 
the Romans in 427; invaded by the 
Picts and Scots, 406. Invaded by 
the Jutes and Saxons, 407. 

Brunechilde, wife of Sigebert, 220. 
Regency of, in Austrasia and Bur- 
gundy, as the guardian of her 
grandsons, Theodebert and Thier- 
ry, 225. Her character and ta- 
lents, 225. Her ferocity, 226. Her 
tragical fate, 227. 

Bulgarians, the oiigin of, 195. They 
devastate the Roman empire, 195. 

Burgundians, religion of the, 137. 
They call themselves the soldiers 
of the empire of RomiC, 138. Their 
condition difierent from that of the 
Franks, 137. 

Cadesia, the battle of, 275. 

Csesarea, the capital of Cappadocia; 
the fall of, 245. 

Caffa, a Greek colony on the Cimme- 
rian Bosphorus, 32. 

Caligula, the emperor, period of his 
reign from 37 to 41 a. p., 43. 

Callinicus, aninliabitant of Heliopolis, 
inventor of the Greek fire, 293. 

Camel, the battle of the, 281. 

Capitularies, the, of Pepin, 309. Of 
Charlemagne, 330. 

Caracalla, emperor, issues an edict 
granting the titles and duties of 
Roman citizens to all the inhabit- 
ants of the empire, 36. 

Cararic, king of 'I'erouane; assassi- 
nated by Clovis, 170, 

Carlovingian race, rapid degeneracy 
of, 365. Extinction of, 397. 

Carolinian books, a treatise dictated 
by Charlemagne against the wor- 
ship of images, 336. 

Carthage, the capital of all the Afri- 
can provmces, 34. Taken by the 
Vandals, 146. h'etaken by Beli- 
sarius, 199. Final destruction o^ 
297. 

Cassiodorus, secretary to Theodoric; 
his voluminous letters, 180. 

Cava, daughter of count Julian, 299. 

Cecilius and Donatus, two competi- 
tors for the archbishopric of (Jar- 
thage, 85. Their respective claims 
carefully examined into by order 
of Constantine, and finally decided 
in favour of the former, 85. 

Celts, 70. Ancient territoiy of, 75. 

Ceres Eleusis, the temple of, pil- 



INDEX. 



489 



lag-ed by the barbarian soldiers of 
Alaric, 123. 

Chalcedonia, besieged by tlie Per- 
sians, 245. 

Chalons-sur-Marne, the battle of, 151. 

Chamavis, 184. 

Champagne, the battle of, 143. 

Charegites, the, a sect of Islamism, 
280. 

Charibert, king of Aquitalne, 217. 
His character and death, 219. 

Charibert, son of Chlothaire II., 231. 

Chariot-racing, the favourite amuse- 
ment of the Romans, 208. 

Charlemagne, his character, 314. Ex- 
tent of his empire, 316. His mar- 
riage with Desideria, daughter of 
Desiderio, king of the Lombards, 
318. His victories over the Sax- 
ons, 322. His public entry into 
Rome, and coronation as emperor 
of the West, 326. His efforts to 
administer his government accord- 
ing to law, and to revive a taste for 
science, literature, and the useful 
arts, 327. His grants to the vassals 
of the crown and to the convents, 
330. His mode of recruiting his 
army, 331. Divides his kingdom 
among his three sons at the diet of 
Thionville, 340. His character as 
a father, 341. His domestic sor- 
rows, 341. His death, 342. 

Charles, eldest son of Charlemagne; 
his death, 341. 

Charles Martel, natural son and suc- 
cessor of Pepin, 301. His nume- 
rous wars and victories, 305. Ger- 
manic character of his government 
and army, 306. His death, 307. 

Charles the Bald, birth of, 349. His 
reign, the commencement of the 
French monarchy, 367. Flies with 
his court from Paris, when it was 
attacked by the Northmen, 372. 
His character, 386. Defeated by 
his nephew; his cruelty to his sons, 
387. Weakness of his govern- 
ment, 388. His death, 389. 

Charles the Fat, 389. Crowned em- 
peror of Rome by pope John VIII., 
390. His character, 390. Suc- 
ceeds to the whole Western em- 
pire, 394. Deposition and death 
of, 395. 

Charles the Simple, 392. Crowned 
at Rheims, 397. His authority cir- 
cumscribed, 432. Imprisonment 
and death of, 434. 
Charles of Lorraine, the last of the 



Carlovinglans, 459. Imprisonment 

and death of, 459. 
Charles, king of Provence, his death, 

386. 
Chauci, the, 184. 

Chemsene, one of the wives of Chlo- 
thaire, 189. 
Cherusci, the, 184. 
Childebert II., king of Neustrla, 221. 

His ferocity and cruelty, 224. His 

death, 225. 
Childeric I., king of Neustrla, 165. 
Childeric II., his tragical fate, 235. 
Childeric IIL, his deposition, 310. 
Chilperic and Gondemar surprised in 

their residence at Vienne, and 

killed by their brother Gondebald, 

164. 
Chilperic, son of Chlothaire I., called 

the Nero of France; his character, 

219. Assassination of, 220. 
Chilperic II., king of Neustrla, 306. 
Chlodoald, son of Chlodomir, 188. 

Founds the monasteiy of St. Cloud, 

188. 
Chlodomir, son of Clovls, 185. Killed 

in the battle of Veserruce, 187. 
Chlorus, Caesar Constantius, charged 

with the government of Gaul, 50. 
Chlothaire I., atrocities of, 188. His 

death, 190. 
Chlothaire IL, son of Fredegunde, 

succeeds to the throne of Neustrla, 

220. He condemns to death all 
the descendants of Clovls, 227. 
Extent of his kingdom, 230. His 
death, 231. 

Chlotilda, her marriage with Clovls, 
164. Her address to her three 
sons, exhorting them to avenge her 
of her enemies, 187. Her revenge 
accomplished, 187. 

Chosroes I., Nushlrvan, king of Per- 
sia, signs a treaty of peace with 
Justinian, 196. His death, 245. 

Chosroes II., king of Persia, 210. 
Conquers all the Asian provinces 
of the Eastern empire, 238. His 
policy, 243. His war with the 
Romans, 245. Conquers the whole 
of Roman Asia and Egypt, 245. 
Assassinated, together with his 
eighteen sons, 347. 

Chramne burned alive, together with 
his wife and children, by order of 
his father Chlothaire, 150, 

Christians, persecutions of the, 56. 

Church, the, disputes in, concern- 
ing the two natures of Christ, 
238. Substitution of the Gre- 
63 



490 



gorian for the Ambroslan chant 
in, 328. 

Circoncellians, the, 140. 

Claudian, the last of the g-reat poets 
of Rome, 120, 

Claudius, the emperor, 43. His vic- 
tory over the Goths, 53. 

Clef, king- of the Lombards, 216- 

Clodion, king- of the Franks, 142. 

Clovis, king of France, 142. His 
marriage vi^ith Chlotilda of Bur- 
gundy, 164. His conversion to 
Christianity, 165. Acknowledged 
king of the Allemans, 165. Bap- 
tized, with three thousand of his 
soldiers, in the cathedral of Rheims 
on Christmas-day, 496, 166. Ex- 
tent of his kingdom, 167. His 
war with the Burgundians, 167. 
Pursues his ravages into Provence, 
enters into a compromise with 
Gondebald at Avignon, 168. De- 
feats the Visigoths in the battle of 
Vougle, 169. His authority ac- 
knowledged over half Aquitaine, 

169. Miracles ascribed to him; 
his zeal for the church and clergy, 

170. His death, 172. 
Coldingham, the convent of, burned 

with all its inmates by the Danes, 
410. 

Cologne, sack of, 374. 

Colomban, St., an Irish missionary, 
404. 

Commodus, the emperor, 46. As- 
sassination of, 49. 

Conrad I., king of Germany, 442. 
Death of, 442. 

Conrad the Peaceful, king of Trans- 
jurane Burgundy and Provence, 
451. 

Constans I., emperor of Gaul and 
Italy, 84. Assassination of, 84. 

Constans II., 292. 

Constantine, the emperor, crowned 
by the legions of Britain at York, 
in 306, 7&. His character; he he- 
sitates between Paganism and 
Christianity, 78. He marches at 
the head of the British legions 
against the Franks, and defeats 
them, 79. The title of Augus- 
tus conferred on him by his father- 
in-law Maximian, 79. Causes his 
father-in-law Maximian to be put 
to death, 80. His victories, 80. 
He abandons the western pro- 
vinces for Greece, 81. He founds 
the city of Constantinople, 81. His 
cruelty in putting to death his son 



Crispus, and almost all his kindred 

82. His prodigality to the church, 

83. His death, 83. 
Constantine II., eldest son of Con- 
stantine the Great, 84. 

Constantine, eldest son of the empe- 
ror Hei'aclius, 215. 

Constantine Pogonatus; his govern- 
ment, 2§2. 

Constantine Copronymus; his wise 
administration, 333. 

Constantine VI., 334. His marriage 
with an Armenian princess, 337. 
Murder of, 337. 

Constantine VII., 428. 

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son 
and successor of Leo the Philoso- 
pher, 429. His works, 429. 

Constantinople, founded by Constan- 
tine the Great, 81. Engages to 
pay an annual tribute of 700 
pounds of gold to the empire of 
Scythia, 147. Despotism of the 
emperors of, 173. Siege of, 296. 

Constantius usurps the inheritance of 
his two cousins, Dalmatius and 
Hannibalianus, 84. Devotes him- 
self exclusively to religious con- 
troversy, 88. His death, 92. 

Coptic, the most ancient of the 
Egyptian tongues, 61. 

Crescentius, the consul; his character 
and death, 463. 

Crispus, son of Constantine the 
Great; his amiable character; put 
to death by order of his father, 82. 

Croatians, 354. 

Cunimund, the Gepidac prince, 212. 

Cymri, the, one of the two grand di- 
visions of the Celtic race, 409. 

Cyrene, the colony of, destroyed by 
the Persians, 245. 

Dacia conquered by Trajan, 47. 

Dagobert, son and successor of Chlo- 
thaire I[., 231. His character, 232; 
his death, 233. 

Dagobert II., 234; his death, 234. 

Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, 84. 

Damascus, the siege of, 273. 

Damasus, bishpp of Rome, 111. 

Danes, incursions of the, on the 
coasts of France and Germany, 
410. Rapid increase of their po- 
pulation, 371. They invade Eng- 
land, 411. Defeated on the coast 
of Cornwall, 413. They renew 
their attack upon England, 415, 
Cruelties committed by them, 4J.6. 
Submission of the, 420. 



491 



Dante, 476. 

Denmark, civil wars in, 398. 

Deventer, the church of, burned by 
the Saxons, and all the Christians 
massacred, 321. 

Desideria, daughter of Desiderio, 
king- of the Lombards^ her mar- 
riage with Charlemagne, 318. 

Diocletian, the emperor, divides the 
Roman empire into four pretorian 
prefectures, 33. Proclaimed em- 
peror by tlie army of Persia, 53. 
His character and talents, 54. Es- 
tablishes his court at Nicomedia, 
55. His violent persecutions of 
the Christians, 56. His abdication, 
57. 

Didier, or Desiderio, king of the 
Lombards, 318. Imprisonment of, 
319. 

Dionysius of Syracuse, 155. 

Domitian, the emperor, 46. Assas- 
sination of, 46. 

Donatists, controversy of the, 85. 
Fanaticism of the, 8&. 

Donatus, founder of the sect called 
Donatists, 85. 

Druids, the, 70. 

East, prefecture of the, boundaries 
of, 34. 

East Anglia, founded by Ulfa, 408. 

Ebrion elected Mord Dom in Neus- 
tria by the freemen, 234. His 
administration, 234. His death, 
235. 

Edecon, minister of AttiTa, 158. 

Edmund, king of East Anglia, 416. 

Edrisides, the"; of Fez, 339. 

Egbert, king of Wessex, 411. His 
death, 413. 

Eginhard, 315. 

Egypt conquei-ed by the Persians in 
616, 245. Conquered by Amru, 
277. 

Egyptians, character of the, 287. 

Eloi, St., 232. 

Ementarius, the historian, 376. 

Emessa, the fall of, 273. 

Emir-al-Mumenin, commander of the 
Faithful, 339. 

Emma, daughter of Charlemagne, 
anecdote of, 341. 

England, conversion of, by St. Au- 
gustine, 410. Invaded by the 
Danes, 411. Divided into counties 
or shires by the Saxons, 422, 

Eraric, king of the Ostrogoths, as- 
sassination of, 205. 
Ermengarde, queen of Louis k De- 



bonnaire, 343. Her cruelty and 
death, 347. 

Essex, the kingdom of, founded by 
Ercenwin in 527, 408. 

Ethelbald, king of Kent, 414. 

Ethelbert, king of Kent, 414. 

Ethelred, king of Kent, 414. De- 
feat and death of, 416. 

Ethelvvolf, son and successor of Eg- 
bert, his character, 413. His 
death, 413. 

Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, 302. 

Eucherius, St., bishop of Orleans, vi- 
sion of, 307. 

Eudes, count of Paris, 396. 

Eudoxia, widow of the emperor Va- 
lentinian III.; her marriage with 
Maximus, 157. Avenges the death 
of her first husband by plotting 
against her second, 157. 

Eugenius, the grammarian, 114. 

Euric, king of the Visigoths, 143. 

Europe, the barbarous tribes of, 70'. 

Eutychians, heresy of the, 240. 

Evaria, king of the Ostrogoths, 182. 

Exarchs of Ravenna, 206. 

Faineant kings, succession of the, 
2.33. 

Fatima, daughter of Mahommed, and 
wifeof Ali, 281. 

Fatimides, entire destruction of the, 
284. 

Fau«ta, daughter of Maximian, 82. 
Put to death by her husband, Con- 
stantine the Great, 83. 

Ferouz, king of Persia, 174.r 

Firnvus, an able and experienced 
leader of the Moor.s, 100. 

Fiscalins, 329. 

Fontenai, the battle of, 369. 

France, division of, into four king- 
doms, 217. Succession of the Fai- 
neant kings, 233. Separation of, 
from Germany and Italy, 367. 
Constitution of the new kingdom, 
of, 370. Defenceless state of, 373. 
Decline of kingly power in^ 452. 
Trade and manufacture of, 455. 
Decline of monarchical liberties, 
456. 

Franks, the, 51. Daring rebellion 
of, 41. Their alliance with the 
Roman empire, 137. No authen- 
tic account of their kings during 
the greater part of the fifth centu- 
ry, 142. Extent of their empire, 
1 62 . Their union with the Armo- 
ricans and the confederates, 166. 
Limited power of their kings, 171, 



492 



Their barbarous laws, 182. Bur- 
gundy and Provence added to 
their king-dom, 185. They invade 
Italy, 343. A territorial aristocra- 
cy formed amongst them, 217. 
Extent of the empire of, imder 
Chlothaire II. and Dagobert, 230. 
They introduce the Mosaic laws 
into their legislature, 309. 

Fredegaire, his history of the Fran ks 
229. 

Fredegunde, wife of Chilperic; her 
infamous character, 220. 

Frisons, 184. 

Fritigern, king of the Goths, 106. 

Gserin, brother of St. Leger, 236. 

G?etuli, 60. 

Gainus, the Goth, 120, 

Galba, the emperor, 46. 

Galerius Caesar, 55. His death, 80. 

Galileo, 25. 

Gallineus, the emperor, 26. 

Gallus, brother of Julian, execution 
of, 90. 

Galsuintha, queen of Chilpericj her 
death, 220. 

Gascons, 351. 

Gaul, 33. Suffers from the incur- 
sions of the Franks and Allemans, 
89. Ravaged by the Germanic 
tribes, 127. Feebleness of the 
Roman government in, 138. Pre- 
valence of paganism in, 139. Pro- 
gress of arts in; commercial pros- 
perity of, 230. Becomes subject 
to the Franks, 315. State of the 
population of, 316. External re- 
lation of the empire^ 350. 

Gelasius, pope, 160. 

Gelimer, 192. 

Genevieve, St., the church of, found- 
ed by Clovis and Chlotilda, 172. 

Genoa, destruction of, by the Franks, 
203. 

Genseric, king of the Vandals; his 
person and character, 144. Lands 
upon the shores of Africa, 145. 
His excesses, 145. Cupidity of 
his troops, 157. Takes and pil- 
lages Rome, 158. His death, 196. 

Gepidze, the, 73. 

Germany, 69. Progress of civiliza- 
tion in, 70. Government of, 73. 
Different nations and confedera- 
tions of, 75. The barbarous tribes 
of, pass the Rhine, and ravage the 
whole of Gaul, 127. Division of, 
into four kingdoms, 218. Supe- 
rior power of the people in, 379. In- 



cursions of the Hungarians during 
the minority of Louis IV., 441. 

Gildo, his sovereignty in Africa, 121. 

Godegisela, king of the Vandals, 127. 

Godegesil, 167. Put to death by his 
brother Gondebald, 168. 

Gondemar, brother of Sigismund, 
187. 

Gondebald, king of Biu'gundy, 186. 
His death, 187. 

Gondecar, king of the Burgundians, 
devastates the whole of eastern 
Gaul, 127. His death, 164. 

Gonderic, king of the Vandals, 144. 

Gondisca, widow of Chlodomir; her 
marriage with Chlothaire, 187. 
Gontram, surnamed the Good, king 
of Burgvmdy, 219. His efforts to 
check the progress of aristocracy 
in Austrasia, 221. Causes of the 
animosity that existed between him 
and the Austrasian nobles, 224. 

Goths, incursions of the, 51. Extent 
of their dominion, 101. Their pro- 
gress in social sciences, 102. They 
establish themselves within the Ro- 
man empire, 103. They revolt, in 
consequence of the ill treatment of 
the Romans, 104. They ravage 
Eastern Europe, 105. They con- 
tract an alliance with the Huns and 
Alans, 106. Their final estabhsh- 
ment within the eastern empire, 
108. 

Gratian, the emperor, 101. His 
death, 110. 

Greece, invaded by Alaric, king of 
the Goths, 122. Attacked by the 
Musulmans, 291. State of, after 
the death of Heraclius, 292. 

Greek fire, invention of the, 293. 

Greens and Blues, sedition of the, 
208. 

Gregory Nazianzen, St., patriarch of 
Constantinople, 111. His zeal for 
the expulsion of the Arian clergy, 
112. 

Gregory, St., bishop of Toursf his. 
account of the origin of the French 
monarchy, 163. His death, 228. 

Gregory the Great, pope, 410. 

Gregory V., pope, 362. 

Grifon, son of Charles Martel, assas- 
sination of, 307. 

Grimoald, son of Pepin, 301. 

Guiafer, duke of Aquitaine, 311. 

Guido, duke of Spoleto, crowned 
king of Lorraine, 396. 

Gunthamond, king of the Vandals, 
196. 



INDEX. 



49i 



Guthnim, the Danish general, defeat 
of, 420. 

Gurmhaillon, count of Cornwall, suc- 
ceeds to the sovereignty of Brita- 
ny, 438. 

Harun al Raschid, 340. 
Harold, king of Denmark, 448. 
Hashemides, the, 338. 
Hassan, khaliph of Egypt, 283. 
Hastings, the Danish chief, 372. His 

fruitless attacks against Alfred the 

Great, 418. 
Heliogabalus, 51. 
Helvetia, 32. 
Hengist and Horsa, 407. 
Henry the Fowler, elected emperor 

of Germany, 443. His death, 446. 
Heptarchy, the Saxon, 409. 
Heraclius, the emperor, 245. His 

death, 279. 
Heribert, count of Vermandois, 434. 
Heriolt, king of Denmark, convei'sion 

and baptism of, 351. 
Hermanfrid, king of the Thuringians, 

184. 
Hermanric, king of the Goths, 101. 

His death, 103. 
Herodes Atticus, 49. 
Heruli, 75. 
Hesham, 339. 

Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, 381. 
Hildebald, king of the Ostrogoths, 

182. Assassination of, 205. 
Hilderic, king of the Vandals, 196. 

Murdered by order of Gelimer, 199. 
Hoel, 137. 

Honorius, the emperor, 119. Inca- 
pacity of, 124, Shuts himself up 

in Ravenna, 129. His mean and 

cowardly conduct, 129. His death, 

140. 
Horic, king of Denmark, o76. 
Hormidas, king of Persia, 89. 
Hossein, grandson of Mahommed; his 

defeat and death, 284. 
Hugh Capet, 451. Crowned at 

Rheims, 459. 
Hugh, count of Provence, raised to 

the throne of Italy, 431. Tyranny 

of, 450. 
Hugh, count of Paris, 457. 
Hugues le Blanc, count of Paris, 434. 
Hunenc, king of the Vandals, 196. 
Hungarians, the, 441. 
Huns, the, 69. 

Iberia, 100. 
Ibraham, sultan, 339. 
Iconoclast controversy, 335. 



Ida, founder of the kingdom of North- 
umberland, 408. 

Illyricum, 32. 

Ingunde, one of the wives of Chlo- 
thaire, 189. 

Ireland, conversion of, 409. 

Irene, the empress, 334. Re-esta- 
blishes the worship of images, 334. 
Her ambition, 336. Causes the 
murder of her son Constantius, 337. 
Is dethroned and banished to Le- 
bos, 354. 

Irnak, son of Attila, 153. 

Isidore, bishop of Beja, 303. 

Islamism, 266. 

Istria and Dalmatia, the celebrated 
league of, 215. 

Italians, the, 312. 

Italy, 33. The administration of, in- 
trusted to the Augusti, 55. Invaded 
by Alaric, king of the Visigoths, 
124. Invaded by the Germans, 
126. Sufferings of, from the bar- 
barian yoke, 140. Governed by 
confederates, 158. Conquered by 
the Ostrogoths, 174. Governed by 
exarchs, 206. Invaded by the 
Lombards, 214. Internal govern- 
ment of the maritime cities of, 215. 
Rapid increase of civilization in, 
under the Lombard kings, 230. 
Invaded by the Franks, 312. Su- 
perior power of the dukes, 379. 
Independence of the nobles, 431. 
Causes and consequences of its 
union with Germany, 449. liiber- 
ty of the states, 475. Revival of 
letters, 476. 

Iwar, his battles with Ethelred, 416. 

Jacobites, 240. 

Jerusalem, conquered by the Per- 
sians, 245. The siege of, 273. 

John of Cappadocia, 192. 

JohnVIil., pope, 388. 

Jovian, the emperor, 96. His death, 
97. 

Judith, the empress, 347. Her as- 
cendency over her husband, 349. 
Dethronement of, 357. Her in- 
trigues, 360. 

Julian, the emperor, 90. His charac- 
ter, 91. His last words and death, 
93. 

Julian, count, a Gothic noble, 299. 

Julius, commander-in-chief of the 
forces in the East, 106. 

Justin I., emperor, 174. 

Justin II., emperor, 237. His cha- 
racter, 241. 



494 



Justina, regent of Italy and Africa, 
112. 

Justinian I., the emperor, 192. His 
religious intolerance, 193. His mi- 
litary policy, 195. His death, 207. 

Justinian H., emperor; his character, 
294. His death, 295. 

Jutes, the, 407. 

Kader, khaliph of Egypt, 464. 

Kalmucs, inhabitants of Tartary, 67. 

Karloman, son of Charles Martel,- ab- 
dication of, 308. 

Karloman, son of Pepin; his death, 
314. 

Karloman, son of Louis, the Germa- 
nic king of Bavaria, 387. His 
death, 389. 

Kenneth H., king of Scotland, 410. 

Kent, the kingdom of, founded by 
Hengist in 400, 408. 

Kenwith, the battle of, 419. 

Khadijah, the wife of Mahommed, 
253. 

Khaled, surnamed "the Sword of 
God," 268. His death, 275. 

Kiersi, the edict of, 391. 

Koran, the, 255. 

Koreishites, the, 253. 

Leger, bishop of Autun, 235. His 
death, 235. 

Leo I., pope, 153. 

Leo HI., pope, 326. 

Leo III., emperor of Constantinople, 
295. 

Leo IV., empei-or, 333. His death, 
334. 

Leo the Armenian, emperor, 355. 

Leo the Philosopher, 428. 

Leontius Augustus, 292. 

Leovigild, kingofthe Yisigoths, 143. 

Libuin, St., the priest, 320. 

Licinius, governor of Ulyricum, 80. 

Lintberg, bishop of Maintz, 395. 

Loewegild, king of Spain, 215. 

Lombards, the, 216. 

Longinus, prime minister and con- 
fidant of Zenobia, 64. 

Longinus, the exarch, 214. 

Lothaire I., emperor, 352. His in- 
trigues with the empress Judith, 
362. His abdication and death, 
380. 

Lothaire II., emperor, 380. His 
death, 383. 

Lothaire, nephew of Otho I.; his un- 
successful wars, 458. His death, 
458. 

Lothaire, king of Lorraine, 340. 



Louis, son of Charlemagne, 340. 

Louis le Debonnaire, 345. His pub- 
lic confession and penance, 348. 
Deserted by all his followers, 360. 
His public degradation and pe- 
nance, 361. His death, 363. 

Louis the Germanic, 366. His death, 
386. 

Louis the Stammerer, 387. His 
death, 392. 

Louis III., 393. 

Louis II., king of Italy, 379. His 
death, 386. 

Louis of Saxony, 390. 

Louis, king of Provence, 396. 

Louis IV., emperor of Germany, 441. 

Louis IV., of France, 448. His 
death, 451. 

Louis v., 459. 

Lucan, the poet, 45. 

Lupicinus, the general of Valens, 104. 

Lupus Centuli, duke of the Gascons, 
351. 

Luxeuil, the convent of, 409. 

Macedonia, foundation of the dynas- 
ty of, 428. 

Macrinus, the Moor, succeeds the 
emperor Caracalla, whom he causes 
to be assassinated, 50. 

Madain, or Ctesiphon, the capital of 
Persia, taken by assault, 275. 

Magnentius, emperor, assassinates the 
emperor Constans, whom he suc- 
ceeds, 84. 

Magnorald, duke, 224. 

Magyars, irruptions of, 441. 

Mahdi, 340. 

Mahommed, birth of, 253. Mar- 
riage of, with Khadijah; his charac- 
ter; his religious studies, 254. His 
description of hell and paradise, 
257. His preaching; his first dis- 
ciples; irritation of the people of 
Mecca against him, 259. His flight; 
commencement of his reign, 260. 
Arrival of, at Medina; militaiy spi- 
rit of, 260. His frugality; his first 
battle against the Koreisliites, 261, 
Conquest of Mecca by, 262. Num- 
ber of his proselytes, 262. His 
last pilgrimage to the Kaaba; de- 
clares war upon the Roman em- 
pire, 262. His last words and 
death, 264, His political charac- 
ter, 290. 

Maison Carree, 34. 

Mallum, the national assembly of the 
Germans, 74. 

Marcian, emperor, 174. 



INDEX. 



495 



Marcus Aurelius, emperor, 46. 

Marcovesa, 219. 

Marseilles, sack of, by Greek pirates, 
in 848, 373. 

Martin, St., archbishop of Tours, 112. 
His persecution of the Arians, 112. 
The tomb of, 139. 

Mascezel, the conquest of Africa by, 
121, 

Maurice, St., convent of, founded by 
St. Sig-ismund, 186. 

Maurice, emperor, adopted son and 
successor of Tiberius; his charac- 
ter, 242. His campaign ag-ainst 
the Avars and Persians, 243. Suc- 
ceeds to the throne of Persia; 
assassination of, with all his family, 
244. 

Mauritania reduced to a Roman pro- 
vince by Caligula, 60. 

Mauronte, duke, 302. 

Maxentius, emperor, 79. His tyran- 
ny, 80. His defeat and death, 80. 

Maximin, the Goth, assassin and suc- 
cessor of Alexander Severus, 50. 

Maximian Augustus, an Illyrian pea- 
sant, accession to the throne of 
Italy, 55. Abdication of, 57. His 
death, 80. 

Maximus, emperor, 110. Defeat and 
death of, 114. 

Maximus Petronius, emperor, 137. 
Killed in a seditious quarrel excited 
by his wife Eudoxia, 137. 

Mecca, city of, 253. The conquest of, 
by Mahommed, 262. 

Medard, St., the church of, 190. 

Melun, devastation of the castle of, 
376. 

Memphis, the ancient capital of 
Egypt; the siege and surrender of, 
by the Copts, 277. 

Mercia, the kingdom of, founded by 
Erida in 585, 408. 

Merobaudes, a Prankish chief, 109. 

Merovseus, (Meer-wig or Sea Hero,) 
162. 

Merovingian Franks, 29. 

Mervan IL, khaliph, deposition and 
death of, 285. 

Metz, the city of, burned by Attila, 
150. 

Michael Rhangabe, emperor, 355. 

Michael the Stammerer, coronation 
of, 355. 

Michael IH., assassination of, 428. 

Milan, the destruction of, by the 
Turks, 203. 

Missi Dominici, the creation of, by 
Charlemagne, 331. 



Moaviah, khaliph, 282. Civil war 

between him and Ali, 282. The 

khaliphate made hereditary in the 

familv of, 283. 
Moaviah H., 285. 
Mseso-Gothic language, 109. 
Mokankas, Coptic general of the Mo- 

nothelites, 276. 
Monguls, 67. 

Monophysites, controversy of, 239. 
Monothelites, controversy of, 239. 
Moors, subjugation and conversion 

of, 297. 
MordDom, (or chief justiciary of the 

Franks, 218.) 
Mordred, 407. 
Morlachia, 71. 
Moseilama, 268. 
Moslemah, 295. 
Motassem, khaliph, 427. 
Musa, his successes, 301. 
Musulmans, the conquests of, 269. 

Their mode of going to battle, 271. 

Subjugation of Persia by, 279. 

Change in the nation of, 287. 

Nabal, the Moor, 121. 

Narbonne, the conquest of, 302. 

Nasamonian Moors, 61. 

Narses, the eunuch; his victory over 
the Goths, 206, Accomplishes the 
total overthrow of the Goths, 206. 
Governs Italy as exarch, 210. 

Narses, a general of Persian origin; 
his victories, 243 . 

Nectarius, patriarch of Constantino- 
ple, 112. 

Nero, emperor, 43. 

Nerva, emperor, 46. 

Nestorians, the, 240. 

Neustria, settlement of the Normans 
in, 434. 

Nice, the council of, convoked to try 
the Arian heresy in 325, 88. Se- 
cond council of, in 787, 335. 

Nicephorus, emperor, 355. 

Nicholas L, pope, 381. 

Nigritia, 61. 

Nika, or Victory, a war-cry in the 
Lower Empire, 208. 

Nisibis, the fortress of, 89. 

Nitria, the deserts of, 62. 

Nomenoe, duke of the Bretons, 374. 

Noricum, 32. 

Normandy, (formerly Neustria,) 434. 
The feudal system introduced into, 
437. Rapid disappearance of the 
Norse language, 438. 

Normans, settlement of, in France, 
389. 



496 



NDEX. 



Northumberland, the kingdom of, 
founded in 547, by Ida, 408. 

Odenatus, the wealthy senator of 
Palmyra, 52. 

Odilo, duke of Bavaria, 311. 

Odoacer, king- of Italy, 158. His 
death, 476. 

Olympiodorus, the historian, 134. 

Olympius, the favourite of Honorius, 
128. 

Omar, a disciple of Mahommed, 264. 
His character, 269. Founds a 
magnificent mosque on the ruins of 
Solomon's temple, 274. His vir- 
tuous forbearance at the siege of 
Alexandria, 278. Assassination of, 
280. 

Ommiades, 259. 

Oppas, archbishop of Toledo, 299. 

Orestes, a patrician, father of Romu- 
lus Augustus, 158. His death, 158. 

Ormouz, king of Persia, 243. His 
death, 243. 

Oscar, duke, 371. 

Ostrogoths, 75. 

Othman, secretary of Mahommed, 
279. Assassination of, 280. 

Otho I., the Great, 431. Accession 
of, to the throne of Germany, 446. 
His character, 446. Elected king 
of Lombardy, 451 . His death, 458. 

Otho II., his character, 460. His cap- 
ture and escape, 461. 

Otho III., 462. His death, 463. 

Otho, duke of Franconia, 442. 

Owen, St., bishop of Rouen, 232. 

Oxford, a school founded at, by Al- 
fred the Great, 423. 

Palestine, invasion of, by the Per- 
sians, 245. 

Palmyra, the city of; its government; 
its independence, 62. 

Pannonia, evacuation of, by the 
Goths, 140. 

Pava, son of the king of Armenia; 
assassination of, 101. 

Paris, meeting of the national assem- 
bly of Austrasia, 222. Sack of, by 
the Northmen, 372. Second sack 
of, 376. Siege of, by the North- 
men, (885-886,) 395. Increasing 
authority of its counts, 433. 

Parthia, 64. 

Parthians, origin of empire of, 64. 
The conquest of Armenia by, 65. 

Patrick, St., the conversion of Ire- 
land by, 409. 

Pavia, siege of, 214. Second siege 



and surrender of, 319. Burning 
and sack of, by the Hungarians, 
443. 

Pepin of Heristal, grandfather of Pe- 
pin le Bref, duke of Austrasia; 
victory of, at Testry ; administration 
of, 236. Death of, December 16, 
714, 237. 

Pepin, surnamed the Short, son of 
Charles Martel; his deference for 
the clergy, 309. Proclaimed king 
at Soissons, 310. His death, De- 
cember 24, 768, 213. 

Pepin, second son of Charlemagne, 
340. Death of, July 4, 800, 341. 

Pepin I., king of Aquitaine, death of^ 
December 13, 838, 362. 

Pepin II,, king of Aquitaine, 366. 
Death of, 864, 386. 

Persia, the conquest of, by the Mu- 
sulmans, 275. 

Persians, character of; religion of, 64. 

Peter, bishop of Alexandria, 111. 

Phalaris, 155. 

Pharamond, 142. 

Philip the Arab, a robber raised to 
the throne by the murder of Gor- 
dian, 50. 

Phocas, emperor; his ferocity, 244. 

Phocas, death of, 245. 

Photius, patriarch, his works, 470. 

Picts, defeat of, by the Scots; final 
extemnination of, 410. 

Picts' wall, 32. 

Pisa, 474. 

Pi si stratus, 155. 

Pistes, the edict of, 391. 

Placidia, sister of the emperor Hono- 
rius; marriage of, with Ataulphus, 
134. Government of, 141. Death 
of, 141. 

Plectrude, the widow of Pepin, 301. 

Plotinus, the philosopher, commis- 
sioned by Gallienus to organize a 
republic on Plato's model, 27, 

Poictiers, the battle of, 303. 

Pont du Card, 34. 

Pontine marshes, 178. 

Probus, emperor, 53. 

Procopius, a distant relation of Julian; 
his attempt to get himself crowned 
at Constantinople, 101. 

Procopius, a great writer, 191. 

Provence, the subjugation of, by the 
Musulmans, 307. 

Psallentium, the, 169. 

Ptolemy, 25. 

Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II., 
150. 



49T 



Qiiadi, 7-2. 

Qiiartodecimans, those who cele- 
brated Easter on the same day as 
the Jews, 111. 

Radogast, king" of Mecklenberg", de- 
feat and death of, 126. 

R^gner Lodbrog, duke of the North- 
men; his audacity, 371. Anival 
of, at Paris, on Holy Saturday, 
March 28, 845; the sack of Pans 
by, 372. Horrible death of, 415. 

Kagnacar, king of the Franks at Cam- 
bray, joins the standard of Clovis, 
162. 

Eagusa, the city of; its union with 
Venice in 997, 215. 

Rainulph, count of Poictiers, crowned 
king of Aquitaine, 396. 

Ravenna, city of; description of, 125. 

Raymond Pons, count of Toulouse, 
443. 

Recarede, 298. 

Recared, king of Spain, 215, 

Red Sea, republics of, 250. 

Remi, St., archbisliop of Rheims, 166. 

Rhadegunde, one of the wives of 
Chlothaire, 189. 

Rhxtia, 32. 

Rhegius, abbot of Pruem; his charac- 
ter of Charles the Fat, 395. 

Rhine, the, 32. 

Ricimer, the patrician; opposition of 
the people to Ins assuming the pur- 
ple; his death, Aug. 20, 472, 158. 

Robert the Strong, count of Paris, 
432. 

Robert, duke of France j his revolt 
and death, 434. 

Roderigo, king of Spain; defeat of, 
at Gandelete, 300. 

Rollo, a Norse chief, besieges Paris; 
peace concluded between him and 
Charles the Simple, 435. Baptism 
and marriage of; made duke of 
Normandy, 435. Rigorous justice 
of, 437. 

Roma, Campagna di, 160, 

Romagna, 312. 

Romanus, tlie prefect; his tyranny 
over the Moors, 100. 

Romanus, governor of Syria; his trea- 
chery, 272. 

Romanus Lecapenus, 429. 

Rome; fall of the empire of, in the 
West, 30. Boundaries of, 31. Ex- 
tent of the territories of, 32. Enu- 
meration of the provinces of, 34. 
Ancient architecture of, 35. The 
title and duties of Roman citizens 



granted to all the inhabitants of 
tlie empire, 36. State of the po- 
pulation, 36. Destruction of small 
proprietors, 39. Debasement of 
the Roman cliaracter, 40. Military 
force of the empire, 4:>. Aggre- 
gate of the legions, 44. Prosperi- 
ty of the provinces, 45. Fidehty 
of the army, 46. Flourisiiing state 
of art during the reign of Adrian, 

47. Depopulation of the empire, 

48, Soldiers of fortune usurp the 
empire, 50. Excesses of the sol- 
diers, 51 . Barbarian incursions on 
the frontiers, 51. The em])erors 
elected by the soldiers, 52. A 
grant made to the see of, by Pepin, 
69, The empire ruled by six em- 
perors together, 80, Downfal of 
paganism in, 96. Oppre.ssion of 
the magistrates of the curiae, 98. 
Corruption and effeminacy of the 
people, 116. Partitian of the em- 
pire between the two sons of Theo- 
dosius, 125, Taking and sack of, 
by Alaric, April 24,410, 132. Pro- 
gress of the doctrine of the divine 
right of king.s, 140. Superiority of 
the empire in its military skill, 151. 
The causes which conspired to its 
overthrow, 155. Taking and pil- 
lage of, by Genseric, king of the 
Vandals, 157. The titular consu- 
late abolished in 541, 193. Iiwa- 
sion of barbarians; the cities over- 
whelmed by eartliquakes; attacked 
bv a plague, which lasted from 
542 to 594, 194. Siege and cap- 
ture of, by Totila, December 17, 
546, 205. Cliariot-racing intro- 
duced into all the great towns, 208. 
Disgraceful state of the pontificate, 
454. 

Romulus Augustus elected emperor, 
158. 

Roncesvalles, the battle of, 64. 

Kosamunde, daughter of Cunimund; 
marriage of, with Alboin, 21^. 
Causes the assassination of her hus- 
band, 216. 

Rotrude, daughter of Charlemagne, 
341. 

Rouen, pillage and burning of, by Ot- 
tar, duke of the Northmen, 371. 

Rudolf founds the monarciiy of Trans- 
jurane Burgundy, 396. 

Rudolf II., king of Transjurane Bur- 
gundy, unites the government of 
Italy with that of Switzerland, 431. 

Rudolf, king of France, death of, 198. 
64 



498 



INDEX. 



Rufinus, an able Gallic jurisconsul, 

prefect of the East; his vices; his 

murder, 119. 
llug-ilus, king- of the Huns, 147. 
Runic, the written character used by 

the Teutonic tribes, 73. 
Russians, one of the most powerful 

of the Slavonic race, 71. 

Sachsen, 75. 

Salee, situated in tlie present king- 
dom of Morocco, 60. 

Sanchez, surnamed Mitarra, duke of 
Gascony, 397. 

Sapor II., king- of Persia, his incur- 
sions into tlie Roman provinces of 
the East; his invasion checked by 
the fortress of Nisibis, 89. The 
conquest of Iberia and Armenia by, 
100. 

Saracens, military and monastic cha- 
racter united in tlieir warriors, 267. 
Their fleet destroyed by the Greek 
*« Fire,'' 294. Defeat of, at the 
battle of Poictiers, 305. Division 
of their empire, 338. Settlements 
of, in France and Italy, 440. 

Sarmati, the, 72. 

Sarmatian horsemen, description of, 
72. 

Sassanides, the, 62. 

Saxons, the number and character of, 
319. Their war with Charlemagne, 

321. Submission of; they violate 
their eng-ag-ement, 321. Massacre 
of ail the Saxon prisoners at Ver- 
den, in 287; final subjug-ation of, 

322. Invasion of Britain by, 407. 
State of the people, 418. 

Scandinavia, 350. 

Schwaben, 75. 

Sciences, moral and ])olitical history 
inseparably connected witli, 22. 
Social, 25. 

Scots, different tribes of, march across 
the whole cxterit of Britain; tiieir 
cruelties, 99. 

Scythians, or Tai'tars, their manners 
and mode of life, 67. Their fero- 
city in war, 67. Freedom of; 
sovereignity of, 67. Domestic sla- 
very, 68. The race of, remarka- 
ble for their ugliness, 69. 

Seid, 262. 

Shah Poor, the Persian monarch; the 
conquest of Armenia by, 51. 

Shiahs, origin of the sec't of, 282. 

Sicambrians, 183. 

Sicily, invasion of, by the Musulmans, 
354. 



Siegbert, king of the Ripuarians; as- 
sassination of, by his son, at the in- 
stigation of Clovis, 169. 

Siegbert, king of Austrasia, marriage 
of, with Brunechilde; assassination 
of, by two pages of Fredegunde, 
220. 

Siegeric, king of the Visigoths; his 
death, 143. 

Sigismund, St., king of Burgundy, 
186. Founds the convent of St. 
Maurice, in the Valais; his death, 
187. 

Silingi, the extermination of, 229. 

Simocatta, Theophylact, 229. 

Singara, the battle of, 89. 

Siroes, son and successor of Cliosroes 
II., 247. 

Slavonians, extent of their territory; 
subjugation of, by the Romans, 71. 

Slavonic tribes, 353. 

Sogdiana, 68. 

Soliman, 295. 

Sophia, empress of Justin II., 241. 

Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, 
273. 

Spain, division of, 33. Invasion of, 
by the Suevi, the Vandals, and the 
Alans; portioned out among its 
Germanic conquerors, 127. State 
of the Roman towns of, governed 
by dukes, 206 Civil wars in, 215. 
Iiide])endence of the maritime 
towns of, 215. Conquest of, by 
the Musulmans, 237. Introduction 
of the Saracens into, 298. Rapid 
increase of tlie population of Moor- 
ish Spain; celebrity of the schools, 
352. 

Spanish Marches, 312. 

Stauraciiis, emperor of Greece, 355. 

Stefania, her reveng-e for tlie death 
of her husband Crescentius, 463. 

Stephen li,, pope, his application to 
Pepin; enthusiasm excited by him 
in the Franks, 312. 

Stilicho, a soldier of fortune; his 
greatness of mind, 120. His cam- 
paign in Greece against Alaric, 123. 
His victories, 125. Destro}'s the 
army of Uadogast by famine, 127. 
His power shaken by court in- 
trigue, 128. Ingratitude of Hono- 
rius toward; his policy in endea- 
vouring to recruit the ranks of the 
defenciers of Rome; refuses the of- 
fers of the barbarian Soldiers to 
avenge and defend him; killed at 
Ravenna, by order of Honorius, 
August 21,408, 129. 



NDEX. 



499 



Suevl united to the monarcliy of 

Spain, in 513, 143. 
Sunnis, orig-in of tlie sect of, 283. 
Sussex, the king-clom of, founded in 

491, by Ella, 408. 
Syagrius Afranius, count of Soissons; 

defeat of, by Clovis, 162. His 

death, 163. 
Syria, the conquest of, by the Mu- 

sulmans, 269. 
Syrians, character of, 287. 

Tacitus, the historian, 45. 

Tacitus, emperor, 53. 

Taherides, 340. 

Taifalae, a Tartar race, 69. 

Tarifa, 300. 

Tarik, a daring- Saracen commander; 
landing- of, in Spain; liis successes, 
299. 

Tartar}', Independent, 67. 

Tartary, Grand, 72. 

Tayef, siege and reduction of, 262. 

Teia, king- of the Ostrogoths, 182. 
Death of, 206. 

Testry, the battle of, 236. 

Teutonic tribes, 73. 

Thankmar, son of Heniy the Fowler; 
his jealousy and resentment agahist 
Otho I.; his death, 446. 

Thebais, the monks of, 61. 

Thendis, king of the Ostrogoths, 182. 

Thendisdi, king of the Ostrogoths, 
182. 

Theodatus, king of the Ostrog-oths, 
182. His marriage with Ama- 
lasonta, 201. His ingratitude; 
his cowardice, 201. His death, 
202. 

Theodebald, 185. 

Theodebert I., 185. 

Theodebert II., 226. Imbecility of; 
death of, 226. 

Theodomir, king of the Ostrogoths, 
175. 

Theodora, wife of Justinian; her in- 
fluence over her husband; her cha- 
racter, 197. 

Theodoric I., son of the great Alaric, 
elected king of the Visigoths^ death 
of, 143. 

Theodoric II., king of the Visigoths; 
murder of, by his brother Euric, 
143. 

I'heodoric, son of Theodomir, king 
of the Ostrogoths; his education at 
the Greek court, 175. Succeeds 
his father in 475; the conquest of 
Italy by, 176. His moderation and 
wisdom, 177. Legislation of, 178. 



Religious toleration of; death of, 
August 30, 526, 179. 

Theoc!osius,a Spanish officercharged 
with the defence of Britain by'Va- 
lentinian; his success against the 
Scots and Moors, 99. Beheaded 
at Carthage, by order of ValentL- 
nian, 100. 

Theodosius the younger, emperor of 
the east; prudence and moderation 
of, 108. 

Theodosius I., the Great; defeats the 
Ostrogoths and Gruthungians, 1 10. 
His character; his orthodoxy. 111. 
Inquisitors of the faith instituted 
by. 111. His violence, 112, Pe- 
nance imposed on him by St. Am- 
brose, 113. His death, January 17, 
395, 114. 

Theodosius IT., emperor of the West, 
second husband of Placidia, 141. 
His patience, 149. Death of, 150. 

Theophanes and Nicephorus, chro- 
nicles and abstracts of, 229. 

Theophania, empress of Otho 11., 
462. 

Theophilus, emperor of Greece, 355. 
His cliaracter and death, 356. 

Theophobus, brother-in-law of Theo- 
philus, 336. 

Thermopylae, 49. 

Thessalonica, insurrection in, (390;) 
massacre of all the inhabitants by 
order of Theodosius, 113. 

Theutberge, daughter of Boson, 
count of Burgundy; marriage of, 
with Lothaire, II., 380. 

Thierry, eldest son of Clovis, 185. 

Thierry II. defeats his brother Theo- 
debert in two great battles, 226. 
His death, 227." 

Thierry III., 236. 

Thierry IV., king of Neustria; death 
of, 306. 

Thorismund, king of the Visigoths; 
assassination of, by his brothel* 
Theodoric IV., 143. 

Thuringians, the conquest of, by the 
Franks, 184. 

Tiberius, emperor, accession of, 
(574,) 241. Character and death 
of, 242. 

Tiberius II., emperor, 237. 

Tiridates, king of Armenia; his 
death, 66. 

Titus, emperor, 46. 

Tolbiac, the battle of, 165. 

Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, be- 
sieges and takes Rome, December 
17, 546, 205. 



500 



Touloun, khan of the Cieorgians; his 
victories over the Huns, 125, 

Tours, domination of tlie priests in, 
139. 

Trajan, emperor, 46. 

Treves, the sack of, by the Gauls, 374. 

Tribonian, the legislator of Justinian, 
192. 

Trinitarian controversy, 8T. 

Turin, 153. 

Tycho Brahe, 25. 

Ubba, son of Rsegner Lodbrog-; de- 
feat and death of, 419. 

Ulphilas, bishop, the apostle of the 
Gauls, 109. 

Usbecs, inhabitants of Tartary, 67. 

Uther Pendragon, 407. 

Valens, emperor, his Vv^eaknesSj 100. 
Marches in person against the 
Goths; his defeat and death, Au- 
gust 9_, 378, 105. 

Valentinian, emperor, his talents; di- 
vides the empire with his brother 
Valens, 98. His brilliant victories, 
99. His war against the Q.i!adi ; liis 
death, NovemlDer 17, ^^IS, 101. 

Valentinian IL, his education, 112. 
Assassination of, May 15, 392, 114. 

Valentinian 111., assassination of, 157. 

Valkyries, 74. 

Valid, 285. 

Vandals, a colony of, trans])orted into 
England, 53. lletreat of, into the 
mountains of Gallicia, 144. Their 
cruel persecution in the name of 
the Arian faith, 126. Their king- 
dom destroyed, 199. 

Venetians, independence of, 353. 

Venice, formation and origin of, 152. 
Institution of the doge of, in 697, 
353. Haughty independence of 
the sailors, 474. 

Vcserru<^, the battle of, 187. 

Vespasian, Flavius, emperor, death 
of, 79, 46. 

Vincy, the battle of, 305. 

Viomark, king of the Bretons, 351. 

Visigotlis, the provinces of Aquitaine 
and Narbonnese Gaul ceded to 
tliemby Honorius, 133. The wan- 
dering life of; religion of, 138. De-, 
feat of, at the battle of Vougle, 109/ 



Vitellius, emperor, 46. 

Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths, his 
courage and ability, 203. He be- 
sieges Kome; suri'enders himself 
prisoner to Belisarius, 204. 

Vortigern, chief or king of Britain, 
407. 

Vortimer, 407. 

Vougle, the battle of, 169. 

Walamir, king of the Osti'ogoths, 175. 

Wallia, king of the Visigoths, makes 
an alliance with the Romans; re- 
stores Placidia to her brother, 143. 
Death of, 143. 

Warnefrid, Paul, a Lombard historian, 
212. 

Warnes, tiie, 180. 

Wedekind, one of the petty kings of 
y/estphaha, his courage and perse- 
verance; his hatred of the Franks, 
321. Submission of, to Charle- 
magne, 322. 

Wessex, the kingdom of, founded in 
519,byCerdic, 408. 

White Huns, 196. 

Widimer, king of the Ostrogoths, 
175. 

Wilfrid, St., 234. 

William, son of Bernhard, duke of 
Septimania, 374. 

Wisigoths, or V/est Goths, 75. 

Witena-gemote, 409. 

Witiza, king of the Visigoths of 
Spain, 299. 

Worms, the diet of, 323. 

Wulford, mayor of Austrasia, 225. 

Wuttrade, 189. 

Yemen, the kingdom of, 249. 
Yezdegerd, king of Persia, 269. De- 
feat and death of, 275. 
Yezed, son of Moaviah, 283. 

Zama, 302. 

Zengis, or Timur the Tartar, his cru- 
elty, 67. 

Zeno, emperor, accession of, 161. 

Zenobia of Palmyra, romantic story 
of, 63. 

Zoroaster, king of Persia, 65. 

Zosimus, 115. 

Zwentibold, king of Lorraine, coro- 
nation of, 397. 



THE END, 



LITTERATURE FRANCAISE. 

BIBLIOTHEQUE CHOISIE DE LITTERATURE 
FRANCAISE. 

SELECT LIBRARY OF MODERN FRENCH 
LITERATURE : In four vols. 12mo. 

Containing : Les Ecorcheurs, Cinq Mars, Paris et les 
Parisiens, Memoires d'un Apothecaire, Keures du 
Soir, Les Enfans d'Edouard, Minuit et Mine, &c. &c. 

Some of these worlds may be had separately. 



DR. BIRDS NEW NOVEL— CALAVAR. 

CALAVAR, OR THE KNIGHT OF THE 
CONQUEST, a Romance of Mexico. Two 
vols. 12mo. 

" Suffice it to say, that Calavar, throughout, is a ro- 
mance of very great interest. It will interest the imagi- 
native from its spirited and stirring scenes of battle and 
blood: it will please the poetic from the splendour and 
beauty of its descriptions, and it will charm every lover 
of fiction by the masterly and graphic scenes which it 
will continually present to him."— JV. Y. Com. Jidvcr. 

" The work may fairly rank among the highest efforts 
of genius, and we do not scruple to pronounce it superior 
to any thing of the kind which has yet emanated from 
the American press."— 5a/ifMnore Federal Gazette. 

"In our opinion, it is decidedly the best American 
novel that has been written, except those enchanting pic- 
tures of Cooper, in which the interest is made to depend 
on the vicissitudes of the sea, and the adventures of 
the daring mariner." 

"The style elegant, sufficiently ornate, yet pure and 
classical." 

" The period which has been judiciously selected by 
this writer, is one of the highest interest— a period so 
crowded with important events, that it is impossible to 
contemplate its vivid scenes without intense curiosity 
and wonder."— flairs Western Monthly Magazine. 

" The unities are perfectly preserved throughout, poeti- 
cal probability is never transgressed : curiosity is satis- 
fied, and the quaint language of three centuries ago is 
sustained with unwavering consistency, and with a 
force and elegance of composition rarely, if ever, sur- 
passed. It is, without question, the best American novel 
that has yet appeared."— JV. F. American. 

SWALLOW BARN, or A SOJOURN IN THE 
OLD DOMINION. In 2 vols. 12mo. 

" We cannot but predict a warm reception of this work among all persons 
who have not lost their relish for nature and probability, as well as all those 
who can properly estimate the beauties of simplicity in thought and expres- 
sion."— JVeu) York Mirror. 

" One of the cleverest of the last publications written on this or the other 
side of the Atlantic." — New York Courier and Enquirer. 

" The style is admirable, and the sketches of character, men, and scenery, 
so fresh and agreeable, that we cannot help feeling that they are drawn from 
nature." 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION IN ENG- 
LAND, IN 1688 : comprising a View of the 
Reign of James IL, from his accession, to 
the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange. 
By the late Right Hon. Sir James Mackin- 
tosh. And completed to the Settlement of 
the Crown, by the Editor. To which is pre- 
fixed, a Notice of the Life, Writings, and 
Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh. In 1 
vol. 8vo. 

" We are at length gratified by the appearance of this 
long- looked for work from the pen of Sir James Mackin- 
tosh. Highly gifted by nature, deeply read, and singu- 
larly accomplished, the view of one of the most memora- 
ble epochs in English history could not have been under- 
taken by any man of a capacity to do it justice in every 
respect, superior to this eminent individual."— Z.it. Oaz. 

"In every page we perceive the anxiety of the histo- 
rian to hold the balance of justice with unfaltering hand, 
and to watch its slightest vibrations." — Mhenmum. 

"The Sequel is highly honourable to the industry and 
talents of its author ; and the Prefatory Memoir is very 
well written. Altogether, the volun)e possesses a sterling 
character, too rare at this period of evanescent publica- 
tions."— Lit. Gazette. 

SKETCHES OF SOCIETY IN GREAT 
BRITAIN AND IRELAND. By C. S. 
Stewart, M. A., Chaplain of the United 
States' Navy, author of " A Visit to the South 
Seas," "A residence in the Sandwich Islands," 
&c. In two vols. I2mo. 

" Some of his sketches are beautiful descriptions ; 
others are finished pictures. The charm of these volumes 
consists in the distinct view which the author gives us 
of the scenery, the country, the cities and towns, the 
aristocracy, the churches,— in one word, the thousand 
particulars, which, together, constitute what is called the 
state of society ."—Religious Telegraph. 

" We have seldom perused a work with so pleasant an 
interest. The contents are various and racy, epistolary 
transcripts of the author's mind, published just as writ- 
ten, without revision, and with all the gloss and fresh- 
ness of first and original impressions about them. The 
work is full of living pictures." 

" His observations on men and manners, in his descrip- 
tion of the different scenes to which his pilgrimage was 
extended, are given in a style of the most flowing and 
attractive kind."— .AT. Y. Courier. 

PENCIL SKETCHES, OR OUTLINES OF CHA- 
RACTER AND MANNERS. By Miss Leslie. 
In one vol. 12mo. 

" Look here upon this picture, and on this.'^ — Shakspeare. 
" Miss Leslie hits, skilfully and hard, the follies, foibles, and exceptionable 
manners of our meridian. Stie is perhaps too severe ; she draws too broadly, 
but she is always more or less entertaining, and conveys salutary lessons even 
in her stronsest caricatures. Her subjects, incidents, and persons, are hap- 
pily chosen for her purposes."— iVa<to?iaJ Gazette. 



NOVELS, TALES, AND ROMAI^'CES, 



Austen's, Miss, Novels — 

Elizabeth Bennet. 

Enimn. 

Mansfield Park. 

Northanger Abbey. 

Persuasion. 

Sense and Sensibility. 
Ayesha, by Morier. 
Aurungzebe, a Tale. 
Rulwer'a Asmodeus at Large. 
Buccaneer, by Mrs. Hall. 
Cooper's Novels and Tales, 26 vols. 

Spy. 

Pioneers. 

Pilot. 

Prairie. 

Lionel Lincoln. 

Last of the Mohicans. 

Rod Rover. 

Wept of the Wish-Ton-Wisb. 

Water-Witch. 

Bravo. 

Travelling Bachelor. 

Heidenmauer. 

Headsman, (the last.) 
Calavar. by Dr. Bird. 
Canterbury Tales, by Miss Lee. 
^ .."„ , " Second series. 
Cecd Hyde. 
Clarence, a Tale. 



Doomed. 

Dominie's Lepacy. 
Deloraine, by Godwin. 
Delaware. 

Eben Erskine, by .Tohn Gait. 
Frankenstein, by Mrs. Shelly. 
Gale Middlcton, by Horace Smith. 
Grummctt's lioe:, a Tale of the Sen. 
Horse-Shoe Robinson, by the Author of 
Swallow Barn, a Tale of the Tory As- 
cendency. 
Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Hugo. 
Insurgents, an Historical Novel. 
.Tulian Farqnharson. 
London Nights' Entertainments, by Leitch 

Ritchie. 
Lights and Shadows of German Life. 
Legends of the Library at Lilies. 
Last Man, by Mrs. Shelley. 
Love and Pride, by Theodorr Hook. 
Library of Romance, edited by Leitch 
Ritchie — containing 

Ghost Hunter, by Banim. 

Robber of the Rhine. 

Waltham, by Picken. 

Stolen Child, by John Gait. 

The Bondman. 

The Slave Kinc, Bug .Tareal. 

The Khan's Tale, by J. B. Eraser. 

Waldemar, by Harrison. 



The Mayor of Wind Gap, by the author 
of the O'Hara Tales. 

Magdalen, by Sheridan Knowles. 

Modern Cymon, from the French of Paul 
de Kock. 

Morals of Pleasure. 

My Cousin Nicholas. 

New Gil Bias, by Inglis. 

Newton Forster, by the author of Peter 
Simple. 

Parson's Daughter, hy Theodore Hook. 

Pencil Skptches, by Miss Leslie. 

Perkin Warheck, Adventures of, by Mrs. 
Shelley. 

Princess, a Novel, by Lady Morgan. 

Pictures of Private Life. 

Rookwood, a Romance. 

Rosine Laval, by Mr. Smith. 

Repealers, by the Countess of Blessington. 

SwnIlf)W Barn. 

Trevalyan. 

TylneyHall, by Hood. 

Unfortunate Man, by Captain Chamier. 

Vathek, an Oriental Tale. 

Wondrous Tale of Alroy, by D'Tsraeli. 

Will Watch, or the Autobiography of a 
Naval Officer, by the author of Caven- 
dish, &c. 



COOPZ2II, Airo WASHINGTON mVING. 



THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC, includ- 
ing Notices of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. In 
1 vol. 8vo. By an Officer of the U. S. Navy. 

" The work embraces copious descriptions of the coun- 
tries visited, graphic accounts of the state of society, 
brief notices of the history, state of the arts, climate, 
and the future prospects of those interesting parts of our 
continent; respecting which, the citizens of the United 
States are supposed to care much, but know so little." 

"Such contributions to our stock of ideas and litera- 
ture, deserve a warmer welcome and wider patronage 
than the common-place or extravagant fictions of the 
day." — J^ational Oazette. 

"Much new and valuable information, embodied in 
excellent language ; there cannot be a moment's doubt 
of its popularity." — Journal of Belles Lettres. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR WALTER 
SCOTT. With a Portrait. 

" This is a delightful volume, which cannot fail to sat- 
isfy every reader, and of which the contents ought to be 
known to all those who would be deemed conversant with 
the literature of our era." — National Oazette. 

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. In 2 vols. 

" The History of Scotland, by Sir Walter Scott, we do 
not hesitate to declare, will be, if possible, more exten- 
sively read, than the most popular work of fiction, by the 
same prolific author, and for this obvious reason: it com- 
bines much of the brilliant coloring of the Ivanhoe pic- 
tures of by-gone manners, and all the graceful facility of 
style and picturesqueness of description of his other 
charming romances, with a minute fidelity to the facts 
of history, and a searching scrutiny into their authenti- 
city and relative value, which might put to the blush 
Mr. Hume and other professed hist^orians. Such is the 
magic charm of Sir Walter Scott's pen, it has only to 
touch the simplest incident of every-day life, and it starts 
up invested with all the interest of a scene of romance ; 
and yet such is his fidelity to the text of nature, that the 
knights, and serfs, and collared fools with whom his in- 
ventive genius has peopled so many volumes, are regarded 
by us as not mere creations of fancy, but as real flesh and 
blood existences, with all the virtues, feelings and errors 
of common-place humanity." — Lit. Gazette. 

GRUMMETT'S LOG. 

LEAVES FROM MY LOG BOOK. By 
Flexible Grummett, P. M. In one vol. 



BY MR. COOPER. 



LIONEL LINCOLN, or the LEAGUER of 

BOSTON, 2 vols. 
The last of the MOHICANS, 2 vols. 

12mo. 
The prairie, 2 vols. 12mo. 



BY WASHINGTON IRVING. 



THE BRAVO. By the Author of the Spy, 
Pilot, &c. In 2 vols. 

The water-witch, or the SKIMMER 

OF THE SEAS. In 2 vols. 
THE HEADSMAN, or the ABBEYE DES 

VIGNERONS. 2 vols. 12mo. 

THE HEIDENMAUER; or, The Benedic-I 
tines. 2 vols. 

New Editions of the following Works by the 
same Author. 

NOTIONS OF THE AMERICANS, by a 

Travelling Bachelor, 2 vols. 12mo. , 

The wept OF WISH-TON-WISH, 2 vols. 

12mo. 
The red ROVER, 2 vols. 12mo. 
The spy, 2 vols. 12mo. 
The PIONEERS, 2 vols. 12mo. 
The pilot, a Tale of the Sea, 2 vols. 12mo. 



VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES of the 
COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS. By 
Washington Irving, Author of the Life 
of Columbus, &c. 1 vol. 8vo. 

" Of the main work we may repeat that it 
the value of important history and the magnetism of ro- 
mantic adventure. It sustains in every respect the repu- 
tation of Irving." " We may hope that the gifted author 
will treat in like manner the enterprises and exploits o' 
Pizarro and Cortes ; and thus complete a series of elegar^t 
recitals, which will contribute to the especial gratifica- 
tion of Americans, and form an imperishable fund of 
delightful instruction for all ages and countries."— JVat. 
Gazette. 

"As he leads us from one savage tribe to another, as 
he paints successive scenes of heroism, perseverance and 
self-denial, as he wanders among the magnificent scenes 
of nature, as he relates with scrupulous fidelity the 
errors, and the crimes, even of those whose lives are for 
the most part marked with traits to command admira- 
tion, and perhaps esteem — everywiiere we find him the 
same undeviating, but beautiful moralist, gathering from 
every incident some lesson to present in striking lan- 
guage to the reason and the heart." — jlm. Quarterly Re- 
view~^ 

" This is a delightful volume; for the preface truly says 
that the expeditions narrated and springing out of the 
voyages of Columbus may be compared with attempts of 
adventurous knights-errant to achieve the enterprise left 
unfinished by some illustrious predecessors. Washington 
Irving's name is a pledge how well their stories will be 
told : and we only regret that we must of necessity defer 
our extracts for a week." — London Lit. Gazette. 

A CHRONICLE of the CONQUEST of 
GRENADA. By Washington Irving, 

Esq. In 2 vols. 

" On the whole, this work will sustain the high fame 
of Washington Irving. It fills a blank in the historical 
library which ought not to have remained so long 
blank. The language throughout is at once chaste and 
animated ; and the narrative may be said, like Spenser's 
Fairy dueen, to present one long gallery of splendid pic- 
tures." — Land. Lit. Gazette. 

THE ALHAMBRA; a series of Tales and 
Sketches of the Moors and Spaniards. By 
the Author of the Sketch-Book, &c. 2 vols 
12mo. 

" Mr. Irving has fairly trusted himself ' to the golden 
shores of old romance,' and yielded to all their influ- 
ences. He has carried us into a world of marble foun 
tains, moonlight, arabesques, and perfumes. We do not 
know whether reform and retrenchment have left any 
imagination in the world, but this we know, that if 
there be any fantasies yet slumbering deep within the 
souls, the tales of the Alhambra must awaken them." 
London Literary Gazette. 

By the same Author. 
The sketch BOOK, 2 vols. 12mo. 

KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY of NEW 

YORK, revised and corrected. 2 vols. 

BRACEBRIDGE HALL, oe the HUMOR- 
ISTS, 2 vols. 12mo. 

TALES of a TRAVELLER, 2 vols. 12mo. 



FAMILY CABINET ATLAS. 



The family CABINET ATLAS, con- 
structed UPON AN ORIGINAL PLAN: Being 
a Companion to the EncyclopsBdia Ameri- 
cana, Cabinet Cyclopiedia, Family Library, 
Cabinet Library, &c. 

This Atlas comprises, in a volume of the Family Library 
size, nearly 100 Maps and Tables, which present equal 
to I^'fty Thousand JVames of Places : a body of informa- 
tion three limes as extensive as that supplied by llie 
generality of Quarto Atlases. 

Opinions of tfie Public Journals. 

"This beautiful and most useful little volume," says 
the Literary Gazette, " is a p?rfect picture of elegance, 
containing a vast sum of geographical information. A 
more instructive little present, or a gift better calculated 
to be long preserved and often referred to, could not be 
offered to favored youth of either sex. Its cheapness, we 
must add, is another recommendation ; for, although this 
eiegf,nt publication contains 100 beautiful engravings 
it is issued at a price that can ba no obstacle to its being 
procured by every parent and friend to youth." 

" This Atlas far surpasses any thing of the kind which 
we have seen, and is made to suit the popular libraries 
which Dr. Lardner and Mr. Murray are now sending into 
every family in the empire." — Monthly Revieiv. 



THE POSTHUMOUS POEMS of the REV. GEO. 
CR ABBE, with his Letters and Journals, and a Memoir 
of his Life. By his Son and Executor. 2 handsome vols. 

" There are in my recess at Iiome another Series of Stories, in number and 
quantity sufficient fan- a volume ; and as they are much like the former in 
execution., and sufficiently different in events and characters, they may here- 
after, in peaceable times, be worth something to you : and the more, bica^ue 
I shall, whatever is mortal of me, be at rest in the chancel of Trowbridge 
c/iur-cA."— Crabbe to his Son. 

" The Life of Crabbe will be found far more abundant 
in striking incidents and extraordinary contrasts and 
reverses, than that of almost any other poet with whose 
personal story we are acquainted. It will be seen from 
his own Diaries, how calmly he had tasted, both of the 
very bitterest adversity— a destitute and forlorn wan- 
derer about the streets of London,— and of what, con- 
sidering his early position and distresses, may be called 
splendid prosperity — the honoured and admired friend of 
Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, Thurlow, Fox— and more re- 
cently of Scott, Rogers, Moore, &c. &c.— the courted guest 
of the noblest mansions— placed at length, by the universal 
consent of all capable of appreciating literary merit, on 
an elevation second to no one among his contemporaries." 

THE BOOK OF SCIENCE ; a familiar introduction to 
the Principles of Natural Philosoph3^ adapted to the 
comprehensionof young people ; comprising Treatises 
on all Sciences. Illustrated by many curi|>tis and in- 
teresting Experiments and Observations, and includ- 
ing notices of the mostrecent Discoveries. Embellish- 
ed with upwards of twohandred engravings on wood. 
" This work is beautifully got up, and elegantly enj- 
bellished with exceedingly clever wood cuts : it is pub- 
lished v/ith the design of" affording to youthful minds a 
brief, but yet perspicuous, exhibition of the first prin- 
ciples of the physical sciences, including accounts of the 
most important discoveries recently made in the several 
departments of natural knowledge. All this the book 
professes to do, and does it well. We tiiink by the easy 
and familiar tone that it adopts in the descriptions, it 
will become a great favourite with youth."— J7c^ro,^. M(i;t. 
"Here is a familiar introduction to the principles of 
natural philosophy. We have cai'efuHy perused every 
page, and every page has afforded us proofs of accuracy 
and observation which we hardly expected. There can- 
not be a more delightful present to the young, or any 
thing better calculated to refresh the memories of the 
old. It is the book, of all others, to teach young people 
how to think."— JV>w Mom.fhly Magazive. 

" The present little volume is so written, that, with 
moderate attention, a youth may obtain a very clear 
knowledge of each branch of natural philosophy. The 
volume is printed uniformly with the 'Boy's Own Book, 
and may be said to be a suitable successor to that little 
work. The compiler deserves great credit for the ar- 
rangement, and also for the simple, at the same time, cor- 
rect andfamiliarstyleof conveying information. Wecan- 
not do better than recommend parents to present to their 
children this elegant little production." — Rcpcr. cfjSrts. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF KING 
CHARLES THE FIRST. By Lucy Aiken. 

2 vols. 8vo. 

' The admirers of Charles the First, owe no grati- 
tude to Miss Aiken. She has told too plain a tale. 
She has given, it is true, no summary of the character 
of that monarch, but she has devoted an extensive 
work to a faithful relation of his public works and ac- 
tions, and has left it to tell his story." — Athenceum. 

" Following up her interesting career of a historical 
writer, Lucy Aiken has here produced one of those 
episodes belonging to our national annals, which add 
to the importance of facts elaborated from many a 
source, all the charms which are usually found in the 
inventions of fiction. 

" Suffice it to say, that from family and other papers 
long hidden from the public view, new lights are ever 
and anon shed upon the actors and proceedings of that 
time : and that without delving too deeply into them, 
our intelligent author has wrought the whole into one 
of those agreeable narratives ibr which her pen is so 
justly popular."' — Lit. Gazette. 



ELEGANT LIBRARY EDITIONS 

OF THE FOLLOV/ING WORKS. 



WORKS OF JOANNA BAILLIE. 

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME, 8vO. 

This edition corresponds with the Library Editions 
of Byron, Scott, Moore, &c. 

"Miss Baillie's Plays on the Passions have been 
long known as among the best in the language. No 
one who reads them can entertain a doubt of the char- 
acter of the writer's affections. Such works could 
never have been dictated by a cold heart." — Christian » 
Examiner- 

" We are among the most earnest admirers of her 
genius, her literary attainments and skill, her diction, 
her success, her moral designs, and her personal worth. 
Some of her tragedies have deservedly passed into 
the stock of the principal British and American thea- 
tres. They are express developments and delinea- 
tions of the i^assions, marked by a deep insight hi to 
human nature, great dramatic power of treatmcJit, a 
fertile spirit of poetry, and the loftiest and puj'est 
moral sentiment." — National Gazelie. 



WORKS OF HENRY FIELDING. 

IN TWO VOLUMES 8v0., WITH A PORTRAIT. 



WORKS OF TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 

IN TV.'O VOLUMES 8v0., WITH A PORTRAIT. 



HISTORY OF ENG. 

LAND. An eleixant roval octavo edition. 



THIRTY YEARS' CORRESPONDENCE, 
between John Jebb, D. 1). F. R. S., Bishop 
of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe; and 
Alexander Knox, Esq., M. R. I. A. Edited 
by the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D., per- 
petual curate of Ash next Sandwich ; for- 
merly, domestic Chaplain to Bishop Jebb. In 
two vols. 8vo. 



iwimnwrTiiwti 



TRAVELS, & 



c. 



NOTES ON ITALY, during the years 1829-30. 
By Rembrandt Peale. In 1 vol. 8vo. 

"This artist will gratify all reasonable expectation; 
he is neither ostentatious, nor dogmatical, nor too mi- 
nute ; he is not a partisan nor a carper ; he admires with- 
out servility, he criticises without malevolence; his 
frankness and good humor give an agreeable color and 
effect to all his decisions, and the object of them ; his book 
leaves a useful general idea of the names, works, and de- 
serts, of the great masters; it is an instructive and enter- 
taining index." — JSTat. Oaz. 

" We have made a copious extract in preceding columns 
from this interesting work of our countryman, Rembrandt 
Peale, recently published. It has received high commen- 
dation from respectable sources, which is justified by the 
portions we have seen extracted.'' — Commercial Advertiser. 

"Mr. Peale must be allowed the credit of candor and 
entire freedom from atfectation in the judgments he has 
passed. At the same time, we should not omit to notice 
the variety, extent, and minuteness of his examinations. 
No church, gallery, or collection, was passed by, and most 
of the individual pictures are separately and carefully 
noticed." — Am. Quarterly Review. 

LETTERS TO A GENTLEMAN IN GER- 
MANY, written after a trip from Philadel- 
phia to Niagara. Edited by Dr. Francis Lib- 
ber. In 1 vol. 8vo. 

" The letters are a very entertaining book, written 
with fairness and frankness. The German character 
which runs through the whole work, written in clear and 
correct English, enhances its interest not a little. The 
variety of subjects touched upon is very great, and 
though we do not always ^gree with the author's opinions, 
there aje none contained in the work which are not of 
great interest." — Paulson. 

A TOUR IN AMERICA. By Basil Hall, 

Capt. R. N. In 2 vols. 12mo. 



with Illustrations 
ByW.W.WooD. 



SKETCHES OF CHINA, 
from Original Drawings. 
In 1 vol. 12mo. 

" The residence of the author in China, during the 
years 1826-7-8 and 9, has enabled him to collect much 
very curious information relative to this singular people, 
which he has embodied in his work; and will serve to 
gratify the curiosity of many whose time or dispositions 
do not allow them to seek, in the voluminous writings of 
tire Jesuits and early travellers, the information contained 
in the present work. The recent discussion relative to 
the renewal of the East India Company's Charter, has 
excited much interest; and among ourselves, the desire 
to be further acquainted with the subjects of 'the Celes- 
tial Empire,' has been considerably augmented." 

EXPEDITION TO THE SOURCES of the 
MISSISSIPPI, Executed by order of the 
Government of the United States. By Ma- 
jor S. H. Long. In 2 vols. 8vo. With Plates. 

BELGIUM AND WESTERN GERMANY, 
IN 1833; including visits to Baden-Baden, 
Weisbaden, Cassel, Hanover, the Hartz Moun- 
tains, &c. By Mrs, Trollope, author of " Do- 
mestic Manners of the Americans." In 1 vol. 

" The book may be safely recommended, house-keepers may read it with 
pleasure, as a smart sketch of scenes aud manners.'' — Spectators. 

MEN AND MANNERS IN AMERICA. By 

Major Hamilton, author of Cyril Thornton, 

&c. 2 vols. 12mo. 
CHITTY'S MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. A 

valuable work for Lawyers or Physicians. In 

royal 8vo. 
HISTORY OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 

Complete, in 5 vols. 12mo. 

" A work unequalled in modern English historical literature." — Athensum. 



SALMONIA; or, Days of Fly Fishing; by 
Sir Humphry Davy. 

" One of the most delightful labors of leisure ever 
seen ; not a few of the most beautiful phenomena of na- 
ture are here lucidly explained." — Gentleman's Mag. 

The MECHANISM of the HEAVENS : by 
Mrs. SoMERViLLE. In 18mo. 

" Is it asking too much of Mrs. Somerville to express 
a hope that she will allow this beautiful preliminary 
Dissertation to be printed separately, for the delight and 
instruction of thousands of readers, young and old, who 
cannot understand, or are too indolent to apply them- 
selves to the more elaborate parts of the work ? If she 
will do this, we hereby promise to exert our best endea- 
vors to make its merits known." — Lit. Gazette. 

ON THE PENITENTIARY SYSTEM IN 
THE UNITED STATES, and its applica- 
tion in France. With an Appendix on Pe- 
nal Codes, and Statistical Notes. By G. De 
Beaumont and A. De Toqueville, Counsel- 
lors in the Royal Court of Paris, and Mem- 
bers of the Historical Society of Pennsylva- 
nia. Translated from the French : with an 
introduction, notes, and additions. By Fran- 
cis Leiber. In 1 vol. 8vo, 

" The commissioners appear to have pursued their re- 
searches with much industry and intelligence, and to 
have rendered themselves thoroughly acquainted with 
the subject." 

" The translation of the work could not have been 
committed to better hands than Mr. Leiber's, and with 
his notes and additions, it forms one of the best practi- 
cal treatises extant on the causes and prevention of 
crime. We shall probably have occasion to recur again 
to this valuable work." — Bait. American. 

TALES AND CONVERSATIONS, or, THE 
NEW CHILDREN'S FRIEND. By Mrs. 
Markham, Author of the Histories of Eng- 
land and France. In 2 small volumes. 

" We conscientiously recommend Mrs. Markham to 
our readers." — Lit. Gazette. 

"These volumes contain excellent instruction in a 
very agreeable form.''— Spectator. 

" We have two neat volumes, containing a series of 
Dialogues, by Mrs. Markham, designed for the improve- 
ment of young people. We have examined them care- 
fully, and can say that we think them well adapted to 
the purpose of the author. They are sufficiently simpk 
to be understood by boys and girls who have jus't begun 
to take to their books ; they convey lessons well wortli 
the study of all who are yet classed among young peo- 
ple; and they are interesting enough to secure the at- 
tention of those whom they are designed to instruct."— 
Chronicle. 

" Tlie title of this book is not altogether so precise as 
it might be. Children are always new; but children- 
new or old, little or big — will find some very entertain- 
ing matter in these vo]mnes.'''— Baltimore Gazette. 

THE BOOK OF the SEASONS. By 
William Howitt. 

"Since the publication of the Journal of a Naturalist, 
no work at once so interesting and instructive as the 
Book of the Seasons has been submitted to the public. 
Wliether in reference to the utility of its design, or the 
grace and beauty of its execution, it will amply merit the 
popularity it is certain to obtain. It is, indeed, cheering 
and refreshing to meet with such a delightful volume, so 
full of nature and truth— in which reflection and experi- 
ence derive aid from imagination — in which we are 
taught much ; but in such a manner as to make it doubt- 
ful whether we have not been amusing ourselves all the 
time we have been reading." — JVew Monthly Magazine. 

" The Book of the Seasons is a delightful book, and 
recommended to all lovers of nature."— Blackwood's Mag- 
azine. 



i 



MISCELLANEOUS, 



A MEMOIR OF SEBASTIAN CABOT, with 
a Review of tlie History of Maritime Dis 
covery# Illustrated l>y Documents from 
the Rolls, now first published* 

" Put forth in the most unpretending manner, and 
without a name, this work is of paramount importance 
to the subjects of which it treats."— Literary Oazette. 
" The author has corrected many grave errors, and in 
general given us a clearer insight into transactions of 
considerable national interest."—//;. " Will it not," says 
the author, with just astonishment, "be deemed almost 
incredible, that the very instrument in the Records of 
England, which recites the Great Discovery, and plainly 
contemplates a scheme of Colonization, should, up to 
this moment, have been treated by her own writers as 
that which first gave permission to go forth and explore ?" 
—lb. " We must return to investigate several collateral 
matters which we think deserving of more space than we 
can this week bestow. Meanwhile we recommend the 
work as one of great value and interest."— 76. 

" The general reader, as well as the navigator and the 
curious, will derive pleasure and information from this 
well-written production." — Courier. 

'A specimen of honest inquiry. It is quite frightful to 
think of the number of the inaccuracies it exposes: we 
shall cease to have confidence in books." "The investi- 
gation of truth is not tlie fashion of these times. But 
every sincere inquirer after historical accuracy ought to 
purchase the book as a curiosity: more false assertions 
and inaccurate statements were never exposed in the 
same compass. It has given us a lesson we shall never 
forget, and hope to profit by."— Spectator. 



HISTORY OF THE IVORTHBIEN, OR NOR- 
MANS AND DANES ; from the earliest 
times to the Conquest of England toy 
l¥illiam of Norn&audy. ^y Henry Whea- 
ton, Memtoer of the Scandinavian and 
Icelandic liiterary Societies of Copenha- 
gen. 

This work embraces the great leading features of Scan- 
;dinavian history, commencing with the heroic age, and 
advancing from the earliest dawn of civilization to the 
introduction of Christianity into the North— its long and 
; bloody strife with Paganism— the discovery and coloniza- 
tion of Iceland, Greenland, and North America, by the 
Norwegian navigators, before the time of Columbus— the 
military and maritime expeditions of the Northmen— 
their early intercourse of commerce and war with Con- 
stantinople and the Eastern empire— the establishment 
jof a Norman state in France, under Rollo, and the sub- 
jugation of England, first by the Danes, under Canute 
;the Great, and subsequently by the Normans, under 

I Duke William, the founder of the English monarchy. 
It also contains an account of the mythology and litera- 
ture of the ancient North— the Icelandic language pre- 
vailing all over the Scandinavian countries until the 
formation of the present living tongues of Sweden and 
Di;nmark— an analysis of the Eddas, Sagas, and various 
chronicles and songs relating to the Northern deities and 
heroes, constituting the original materials from which 
the work has been principally composed. It is intended 
to illustrate the history of France and England during 
Uie middle ages, and at the same time to serve as an 
introduction to tiie modern history of Denmark, Norway, 
and Sweden. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN PHILOSO- 
PHY. Containing the Doctrines, Duties, Admoni- 
tions, and Consolations, of the Christian Religion. 
By JoH^f Burns, M. D., F. R. S. From the 4th 
London edition. In 1 vol. 12mo. 

" The author has unfolded the principles of Christianily with much candor 
and correctness ; he has explained our personal and relative duties in a just 
%nd philosophical manner ; and, by (he ease and unaffected simplicity of his 
style, has rendered his treatise pleasing as well as instiuctive. — His remarks 
on brotherly love, in that part of h's work embracing the relative duties, 
possess much to interest."— vj Traveller. 

" The book has a hi^h reputation in Great Britain, and there is no being 
cipible of reflection, who has not need, and upon whom it is not incumbent, 
to obKin light, and bestow concern on the topics which are here discussed. 

" Every page that directs the mind to what should be deemed the main in 
terest nf life, and causes operative thought in ulterior destinies, in of inesti- 
mable value."— A^at. Gazette. 



PRIVATE MEMOIRS of NAPOLEON BO- 
NAPARTE, from the French of M. Fauve- 
LET DE BouRRiENNE, PHvate Secretary to 
the Emperor. 

The peculiar advantages of position in regard to 
his present subject, soleljr enjoyed by M. de Bourri- 
enne, his literary accomplishments and moral quali- 
fications, have already obtained for these memoirs the 
first rank in contemporary and authentic history. In 
France, where they had been for years expected with 
anxiety, and where, since the revolution, no work 
connected with that period or its consequent events 
has created so great a sensation, the volumes of Bour- 
rienne have, from the first, been accepted as the only 
trustworthy exhibition of the private life and political 
principles of Napoleon. 

"We know from the best political authority now liv- 
ing in England, that the writer s accounts are perfectly 
corroborated by facts."— Zit. Oaz. 

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. With 
coloured plates : elegantly bound, with gilt 
edges : a beautiful volume for a present. 

THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA, particu- 
larly of the Cession of that Colony to the 
United States of North America ; with an 
Introductory Essay on the Constitution and 
Government of the United States, by M. de 
Marbois, Peer of France, translated from 
the French by an American Citizen. In 1 
vol. 8vo. 

SISMONDI'S HISTORY OF THE FALL 
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: Comprising 
a View of the Invasion of the Barbarians. 

RANDOLPH'S LETTERS. Letters of John Ran- 
dolph to a young relative, embracing a series of years, 
from early youth to mature manhood. In one vol. 
"This collection, made by the voung relative himself, 
is entirely authentic. The letters were selected from 
among several hundred, as most fit for publication. 
Every one of them is strongly characteristic. They are 
made up of excellent instructions to his relative, respect- 
ing personal conduct and the culture of his mind ; philo- 
sophical remarks; accounts of his own situation and 
feelings ; notices of his acquaintance, &c."— .AOat. Oaz. 

"The letters now published exhibit manv amiable 
traits of private character, and show how keenly he suf- 
fered from his own overwrought sensibilities. Thev 
abound in evidences of good feeling, and good sense. As 
specimens of epistolary style, they may l>e safely con- 
sulted; while, as fin-iiishing a closer insight into the 
views and habits of a man who was misunderstood by 
many, and whose history is part of the history of his 
country, they should be read by a]V'—Daihj Chronicle. 

CLARENCE ; a Tale of our own Times. By 
the Author of Redwood, Hope Leslie, &c. 
In 2 vols. 

AMERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW, pub- 
lished on the first of March, June, Septem- 
ber, and December. Price $5 per ann. 

*/ A few complete Sets of the Work are still for 
sale. 

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CURREN- 
CY AND BANKING SYSTEM OF THE 
UNITED STATES. By Albert Galla- 
tin. 

THE SUMMER FETE. A Poem, with Songs. 
By Thomas Moore, Esq., Author of Irish Melo- 
dies, &c. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



TOUR OF A GERMAN PRINCE, (Puckler 
MusKAU,) through the Southern and West- 
ern parts of England, Wales, Ireland, and 
France. In 8vo. 

" It contains the least prejudiced and most acute no- 
tices we iiave read of tlie habits and modes of thinking 
of Englishmen, and the merits and defects of the country 
and society."— Olobe. 

CONVERSATIONS WITH LORD BY- 
RON ON THE SUBJECT OF RELI- 
GION. By Kennedy. 12mo. 

TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN, 
IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. Vv^ith 
Notes and Illustrations. By the Editor of 
Captain Rock's Memoirs. In 1 vol. 12mo. 

"Considering the circumstances under which these 
volumes are given to the public, we consider their con- 
tents as amongst tha most interesting records of which 
the assertion of the human mind ever formed the 
theme." — Monthly Review. 

" The masterly manner in which Mr. Moore has 
brought together his arguments, the great extent and 
minuteness of his researches into ancient author- 
ities, his intimacy with the customs and traditions of 
other times, and his close and critical knowledge of the 
ancient languages, will surprise the reader of his Trav- 
els, who may have measured his talents by his songs." 
— American Sentinel. 

A GUIDE TO AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

IN HIS SEARCH FOR A RELIGION. 

By the Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan, A. M. 

1 vol. 12mo. Being an answer to Moore's 

work. 
THE ECONOMY OF MACHINERY AND 

MANUFACTURES. By Chares Babbage. 

18mo. 

" Of the many publications which have recently issued 
from the press, calculated to give a popular and attractive 
form to the results of science, we look upon this volume 
as by far the most valuable. Mr. Babbage's name is 
well known in connexion with the general subject of 
which he has here undertaken to treat. But it will be 
diflicult for the reader who does not possess the volume 
itself, to understand the happy style, the judgment and 
tact, by means of which the author has contrived to lend 
almost the charm of romance to the apparently dry and 
technical theme which he has chosen." — Monthly Rev. 

OUSELEY'S REMARKS on the STATIS- 
TICS AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS 

OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" The author is a man of solid sense, friendly to this 
country, and his remarks have t!ie value and interest 
of which his character and inquiries authorized the ex- 
pectation." — JVational Gaictte. 

TWO YEARS AND A HALF IN THE 
NAVY, or. Journal of a Cruise in the 
Mediterranean and Levant, on board 
THE U. S. Frigate Constellation, in the 
Years 1829, 1830, and 1S3L By E. C. 
Wines. In 2 vols. 12mo. 

" The author is a gentleman of classical ed;jcation, a 
shrewd observer, a lively writer, whose natural manner 
is always agreeable ; whose various matter is generally 
entertaining and instructive; and whose descriptions 
are remarkably graphic. The greater portion of his pages 
have yielded us both profit and pleasure." — Mat. Gaz. 

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL- 
BORNE. By the late Rev. Gilbert White, 
A. M., Fellow of the Oriel College, with 
additions, by Sir William Jardine, Bart., 
F. R. S. E. F. L. S. M. W. S., Author of " Il- 
lustrations of Ornithology." 1 vol. 18mo. 
"White's History of Selborne, the most fascinating 
piece of rural writing and sound English philosophy that 
has ever issued from the press." — Athencpum. 



The duchess of BERRI in LA VENDEE, 

comprising a Narrative of her Adventures, 
with her private papers and secret corres- 
pondence. By General Dermoncourt, who 
arrested her royal highness at Nantes. In 1 
vol. 12mo. 

[This edition exclusively contains the important documents and papers 
which would have led to the seizure of the work in France, had they been 
published there.] 

" Upon its high interest we need not enlarge : the personal adventures of 
the princess, her journeyings on foot and on horseback, in disguise and la 
her own character, her mental and bodily suflFer'ngs, her hopes and her di s- 
pair, are a romance, and seem to belong to another age. They recall the 
wanderings and the perils of our own Charles Edward, with all the addi- 
tional interest which must attach to the daring and the sufl'ering of a wo- 
man." — Atlitnxuni. 

AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY INTO THE 

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 
OF THE PRECIOUS METALS, from 
the Earliest Ages, and into the Influence of 
their Increase or Diminution on the Prices 
of Commodities. By William Jacob, Esq. 
F. R. S. In 8vo. 

" Mr. Jacob's Historical Inquiry into the Production 
and Consumption of the Precious Metals, i» one of the 
most curious and important works which has lately is- 
sued from the press." — Spectator. 

" It was written at the suggestion of the late Mr. 
Huskisson, and displays the fruits of much industry and 
research, guided by a sound judgment, and embodying 
more learning than is usually brought to bear on sta- 
tistical or economical subjects. We recommend the 
book to general attention." — Times, Sept. 2, 1831. 

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE 
PACIFIC AND BEHRING'S STRAIT, 
to co-operate with the Polar Expeditions: 
performed in his Majesty's ship Blossom, 
under the command of Capt. P. W. Beechey, 
R. N., in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28. 8vo. 

" The most interesting of the whole series of expedi- 
tions to the North Pole." — Quarterly Review. 

"This expedition will be for ever memorable as one 
v/hich has added immensely to our knowledge of this 
earth that we inhabit." — Blackwood's Mag. 

" Captain Beechey's work is a lasting monument of his 
own abilities, and an honor to his country."— Zif. Gaz. 

A GENERAL VIEW of the PROGRESS 
of ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, chiefly 
during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth 
Centuries. By Sir James Mackintosh, 

M. P. In 8vo. 

"The best offspring of the pen of an author who in 
philosophical spirit, knowledge and reflection, richness 
of moral sentiment, and elegance of style, has altogether 
no superior— perhaps no equal— among his contempora- 
ries. Some time ago we made copious extracts from the 
beautiful work. We could not recommend the whole 
too earnestly." — JVational Gazette. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, by Sir James 
Mackintosh. Octavo edition. 

*^* The first volume of this edition will contain the 
same matter as the first three volumes of the 18mo. 
edition. 

THE INFIRMITIES OF GENIUS, illus- 
trated by referring the anomalies in the | 
literary character, to the habits and consti- 
tutional peculiarities of Men of Genius. 
By R. R. Madden, Esq. In 2 vols. 12mo. 

" This is a very valuable and interestins; work, full of new views and 
curious deductions ; beginning with general remarks on the influence of lit- 
erary habits on the constitution, and thence proceeding to make the theory 
more actual by its application to particular instances. 

" His physical biographies, if we may so term them, of Burns, Covrper, 
Byron, and Scott, are of a very curious and novel kind ; written with equal 
feeling and observation. He traces Cowper's malady to its line source, 
monomania on religious subjects; and the tone of the remarKs is at once so 
just and so candid, that we cannot do better than give a brief portion." — 
Literary Gazette 



CABINET I.IBRARY. 



No. 1.— NARRATIVE OF THE LATE 
WAR IN GERMANY AND FRANCE. 
By the Marquess of Londonderry. With 
a Map. 

No. 2.— JOURNAL of a NATURALIST, 

with plates. 

No. 3.— AUTOBIOGRAPHY of SIR WAI^ 
TER SCOTT. With a portrait. 

No. 4.— MEMOIRS of SIR WALTER RA- 
LEGH. By Mrs. A. T. Thomson. With a 
portrait 

No. 5.— LIFE OF BELISARIUS. By Lord 
Mahon. 

MILITARY MEMOIRS OF THE DUKE 
OF WELLINGTON. By Capt. Moyle 
Sherer, Author of Recollections of the 
Peninsula. In 2 vols. 18mo. 

"The tone of feeling and reflection which per- 
vades the work is in the characteristic mood of the 
writer, considerate, ardent, and chivalrous ; his prin- 
ciples, as might be expected, are sound and independ- 
ent, and his language is frequently rich in those beau- 
ties which distinguish his previous writings. To us 
it appears a work which will not discredit its illustri- 
ous subject." — United Service Journal. 

GLEANINGS in NATURAL HISTORY, 

being a Companion to the Journal of a Nat- 
uralist. 

" The Cabinet Library bids fair to be a series of great 
value, and is recommended to public and private libraries, 
to professional men, and miscellaneous readers generally. 
It is beautifully printed, and furnished at a price which 
will place it within the reach of all classes of society."—- 
American Traveller. 

" The series of instructive, and, in their original form, 
expensive works, which these enterprising publishers are 
now issuing under the title of the "Cabinet Library," 
is a fountain of useful, and almost universal knowledge ; 
the advantages of which, in forming the opinions, tastes' 
and manners of that portion of society, to which this 
varied information is yet new, cannot be too highly 
estimated.'-'— JVafionoiJoMrnaZ. 



Messrs. Carey and Lea have commenced a series of 
publications under the above title, which are to appear 
monthly, and which seem likely, from the specimen before 
us, to acquire a high degree of popularity, and to afford 
a mass of various information and rich entertainment, 
once eminently useful and strongly attractive. The 
mechanical execution is fine, the paper and typography 
excellent." — Mashville Banner. 



MEMOIRS OF THE lilFE OF SIR ^VAIi- 
TER RALEGH, Avitli some Accoimt of tlie 
Period in wliicli he lived. By MRS. A. T. 
THOMSON. With a Portrait. 

" Such is the outline of a life, which, in Mrs. Thom- 
son's hands, is a mine of interest; from the first page to 
the last the attention is roused and sustained, and while 
we approve the manner, we still more applaud the spirit 
ill which it is executed."— Literary Gazette. 



JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. 

Plates. 



■With 



'Plants, trees, and stones we note ; 

Birds, insects, beasts, and rural things. 

We again most strongly recommend this little unpre- 
tending volume to the attention of every lover of nature, 



and more particularly of our country readers. It will 
induce them, we are sure, to examine more closely than 
they have been accustomed to do, into the objects of ani- 
mated nature, and such examination will prove one of 
the most innocent, and the most satisfactory sources of 
gratification and amusement. It is a book that ought 
to find its way into every rural drawing-room in the 
kingdom, and one that may safely be placed in every 
lady's boudoir, be her rank and station in life what they 
may."' — Quarterly Review, No. LXXVIII. 

"We think that there are few readers who will not 
be delighted (we are certain all will be instructed) by the 
' Journal of a Naturalist.' " — Monthly Review. 

" This is a most delightful book on the most delightful 
of all studies. We are acquainted with no previous 
work which bears any resemblance to this, except 
' White's History of Selborne,' the most fascinating piece 
of rural writing and sound English philosophy that ever 
ssued from the press." — Mhenceum. 

" The author of the volume now before us, has pro- 
duced one of the most charming volumes we remember 
to have seen for a long time." — JVew Monthly Magazine, 
June, 1829. 

" A delightful volume — perhaps the most so — nor less 
instructive and amusing — given to Natural History 
since White's Selborne." — Blackwood's Magazine. 

" The Journal of a Naturalist, being the second num- 
ber of Carey and Lea's beautiful edition of the Cabinet 
Library, is the best treatise on subjects connected with 
this train of thought, that we have for a long time pe 
rused, and we are not at all surprised that it should have 
received so high and flattering encomiums from the Eng- 
lish press generally." — Boston Traveller, 

"Furnishing an interesting and familiar account of 
the various objects of animated nature, but calculated 
to afford both instruction and entertainment." — J\rash- 
ville Banner. 

" One of the most agreeable works of its kind in the 
language." — Courier de la Louisiane. 

" It abounds with numerous and curious facts, pleas- 
ing illustrations of the secret operations and economy of 
nature, and satisfactory displays of the power, wisdom 
and goodness, of the great Creator."— PAi/ati. Album, 



THE MARQ,UESS OF LONDONDERRY'S 
NARRATIVE OF THE LATE MVAR IN 
GERUIANY AND FRANCE. With a Map. 

" No history of the events to which it relates can be 
correct without reference to its statements."— Literary 

Gazette. 

"The events detailed in this volume cannot fail to 
excite an intense interest." — Dublin Literary Gazette, 

"The only connected and well authenticated account 
we have of the spirit-stirring scenes which preceded the 
fall of Napoleon. It introduces us into the cabinets and 
presence of the allied monarchs. We observe the secret 
policy of each individual : we see the course pursued by 
the wily Bernadotte, the temporizing Metternichi, and 
the ambitious Alexander. The work deserves a place in 
every historical library." — Globe. 

" We hail with pleasure the appearance of the first 
volume of the Cabinet Library." " The author had sin- 
gular facilities for obtaining the materials of his work, 
and he has introduced us to the movements and measures 
of cabinets which have hitherto been bidden from the 
world." — American Traveller. 

"It maybe regarded as the most authentic of all the 
publications which profess to detail the events of the 
important campaigns, terminating with that which se- 
cured the capture of the French metropolis." — JVat. Jour- 
nal. 

" It is in feet the only authentic account of the memo- 
rable events to which it refers."— JVasAriWe Banner. 

" The work deserves a place in every library."— PAiVa- 
delphia Album. 



CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 



INTRODUCTION to the STUDY of the 
GREEK CLASSIC POETS, for the use of 
Young Persons at School or College. 

Contents. — General Introduction ; Ho- 
meric Questions ; Life of Homer; Iliad; 
Odyssey; Margites; Batrachomyomachia ; 
Hymns ; Hesiod. By Henry Nelson Cole- 
ridge. 

" We have been highly pleased with this little volume. 
This work supplies a want which we have often painfully 
f:^It, and afibrds a manual which we should gladly see 
placed in the hands of every embryo under-graduate. 
We look forward to the next portion of this work with 
very eager and impatient expectation." — British Critic. 

" Mr. Coleridge's work not only deserves the praise of 
clear, eloquent and scholar-like exposition of the prelimi- 
nary matter, which is necessary in order to understand 
and enter info the character of the great Poet of anti- 
quity; but it has likewise the more rare merit of being 
admirably adapted for its acknowledged purpose. It is 
written in thai fresh and ardent spirit, which to the con- 
genial mind of youth, w'lW convey instruction in the 
most effective manner, by awakening the desire of it; 
and by enlisting the lively and buoyant feelings in the 
cause of useful and improving study; while, by its preg- 
nant brevity, it is more likely to stijnulate tlsan to super- 
sede more profound and extensive research. If then, as it 
is avowedly intended for the use of the younger readers 
of Homer, and, as it is impossible not to discover, with a 
more particular view to the great school to which the au- 
thor owes his education, we shall be much mistaken if it 
does not become as popular as it will be useful in that 
celebrated establishment."— Qwarfer^y Review. 

" We sincerely hope that Mr. Coleridge will favor us 
with a continuation of his work, whicn he promises."— 
Qent. Mag. 

" The author of this elegant volume has collected a vast 
mass of valuable information. To the higher classes of 
the public schools, and young men of universities, this 
volume will be especially valuable ; as it will afford an 
agreeable relief of light reading to more grave studies, at 
once instructive and entertaining." — Wesleyan Methodist 
Magazine. 

ATLAS OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY, con- 
sisting of 21 Colored Maps, with a complete 
Accentuated Index. By Samuel Butler, 
D. D., F. R. S. &c. Archdeacon of Derby. 

By the same Author. 

GEOGRAPHIA CLASSICA: a Sketch of 
Ancient Geography, for the Use of Schools. 
In 8vo. 

Extract of a Letter from Professor Stuart of 
Andover. 

" I have used Butler's Atlas Classica for 12 or 14 years, 
and prefer it on the score of convenience and correctness 
to any atlas within the compass of my knowledge. It 
is evidently a work of much care anil taste, and most 
happily adapted to classical readers and indeed ail others, 
who consult the history of past ages. I have long cherish- 
ed a strong desire to see the work brought forward in this 
country, and I am exceedingly gratified that you have 
carried through this undertaking. The beautiful manner 
in which the specimen is executed that you have sent me 
does great credit to engravers and publishers. It cannot 
be that our schools and colleges will fail to adopt this 
work, and bring it into very general circulation. I know] 
of none which in all respects would supply its place." 

"The abridged but classical and excellent work of But- 
ler, on Ancient Geography, which you are printing as an 
accompaniment to the maps, I consider one of the most 
attractive works of the kind, especially for j'oung persons 
studying the classics, that has come under my notice. I 
wish you the most ample success in these highly useful 
publications." 



MECHANICS, MANUFACTURES, &c. 



A PRACTICAL TREATISE on RAIL- 
ROADS, AND INTERIOR COMMUNI- 
CATION IN GENERAL— containing an 
account of the performances of the diiferent 
Locomotive Engines at, and subsequent to, 
the Liverpool Contest ; upwards of two 
hundred and sixty Experiments with Tables 
of the comparative value of Canals and Rail- 
roads, and the power of the present Locomo- 
tive Engines. By Nicholas Wood, Colliery 
Viewer, Member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, &c. 8vo. with plates. 

" In this, the able author has brought up his treatise to 
the date of the latest improvements in this nationally 
important plan. We consider the volume to be one of 
great general interest." — Lit. Qaz. 

" We must, in justice, refer the reader to the work 
itself, strongly assuring him that, whether he be a man of 
science, or one totally unacquainted with its technical 
difficulties, he will here receive instruction and pleasure, 
in a degree which we have seldom seen united before." — 
Monthly Rev. 

REPORTS ON LOCOMOTIVE and FIXED 
ENGINES. By J. Stephenson and J. 
Walker, Civil Engineers. With an Ac- 
count of the Liverpool and Manchester Rail- 
road, by H. Booth. In 8vo. with plates. 

MILLWRIGHT and MILLER'S GUIDE. 
By Oliver Evans. New Edition, with ad- 
ditions and corrections, by the Professor of 
Mechanics in the Franklin Institute of 
Pennsylvania, and a description of an im- 
proved Merchant Flour-Mill, with engrav- 
ings, by C. & O. Evans, Engineers. 

THE NATURE and PROPERTIES of the 

SUGAR CANE, with Practical Directions 

for its Culture, and the Manufacture of its 

various Products; detailing the improved 

Methods of Extracting, Boiling, Refining, 

and Distilling; also Descriptions of the Best 

Machinery, and useful Directions for the 

general Management of Estates. By George 

Richardson Porter. 

"This volume contains a valuable mass of scientific 

and practical information, and is, indeed, a compendium 

of everything interesting relative to colonial agriculture 

and manufacture." — Intelligencer. 

"We can altogether recommend this volume as a most 
valuable addition to the library of the home West India 
merchant, as well as that of the resident planter."— Lit. 
Oazette. 

" This work may be considered one of the most valua-t 
ble books that has yet issued from the press connected" 
with colonial interests; indeed, we know of no greater 
service we could render West India proprietors, than in 
recommending the study of Mr. Porter's volume."— Spec- 
tator. 



TREATISE ON CLOCK AND WATCH- 
MAKING, Theoretical and Practical. By 
Thomas Reid, Edinburgh, Honorary Mem- 
ber of the Worshipful Company of Clock- 
Makers, London. Royal 8vo. Illustrated 
bv numerous Plates. 



THE PHOFLE^S Z.I3RAHY. 

" The editors and publishers should receive the thanks of the present generation, and the gratitude of 
posterity, for being the first to prepare in this language what deserves to be entitled not the ENCYCLO- 
PEDIA AMERICANA, but the people's library." — N. Y. Courier and Enquirer. 



Just Published, by Carey, Lea, d^ Blanchard, 

And sold in Philadelphia by E. L. Careij <^ A. Hart ; in New York by G. ^ C. Sf H. Carvill ; in Boston 
by Carter ^ Hendee ; in Baltimore by E. J. Coale, Sr W. ^ J. Neal ; in Washington by Thompson ^ Homans ; 
in Richmond by J. H.Nash; in Savannah by W. T. Williams; in Charleston by W.HBerrett; in New-Orleans 
by W. M'Kean ; in Mobile by Odiorne ^ Smith ; and by the principal booksellers throughout the Union, 



ENCYCLOPiEEIA AMERICANA: 

A 

POPULAR DICTIONARY 

OF 

ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, HISTORY, AND POLITICS, 

BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME, AND INCLUDING A COPIOUS COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES IN 

AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY: 
On the basis of the Seventh Edition of the German 

CONVERSATIONS-LEXICON. 



Edited by FRANCIS LIEBER, 

ASSISTED BY 

EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH and T. G. BRADFORD, Esqrs. 



IN THIRTEEN LARGE VOLUMES, OCTAVO, PRICE TO SUBSCRIBERS, BOUND IN CLOTH, 
TWO DOLLARS AND A HALF EACH. 
EACH VOLUME CONTAINS BETWEEN 600 AND 700 PAGES. 



"THE WORLD-RENOWNED CONVERSATIONS- 
LEXICON."— £«!2».6m/-^ A Review. 

" To suparsede cumbrous Encyclopsedias, and put within 
the reach of iha poorest man, a complete library, equal to 
about forty or fifty good-sized octavos, embracing every 
possible subject of interest to the number of 20,100 in ail — 
provided he can spare either from his earnings or his ex- 
travagancies, tzoenty cents a week, for three years, a library 
so contrived, as to be equally suited to the learned and 
the unlearned, — the mechanic — the merchant, and the pro- 
fessional man." — JV. Y. Courfer and Inquirer. 

"The reputation of this valuable work has augmented 
with each volume; and if the unanimous opinion of the 
press, uttered from all quarters, be true, v.'hich in this 
instance happens to be the case, it is indeed one of tlie 
best of public tions. It should be in the possession of 
every intelligent man, as it is a library in itself, compris- 
injr an immense mass of lore upon almost every possible 
subject, and in the cheapest possible form." — JV. Y. Mirror. 

"Witnesses from every part of the country concurred 
in declaring that the Encycloptedia Americana was in a 
fair way to degrade the dignity of learning, and especially 
he learning of Encyclopiedias, by making it too cheap — 
that the multitudes of all classes were infatuated with it 
n saying in so many words from the highest t'O the low- 
est the more we see of the work the better we like it.' " 
— JV* Y. Courie-' and luqziirer. 

The articles in the present volume appear to us to 
evince the same ability and research which gained so 
favorable a reception for the work at its commencement. 
The Appendix to the volume now before us, containing an 
account of the Indian Languages of America, must prove 
higlily interesting to the reader in this country; and it is 
atonce remarkable as a specimen of history and philology. 
The work altogether, we may again be permitted to ob- 
serve, reflects distinguished credit upon the literary and 
scientific character, as well as the scholarship of our 
country." — Charleston Courier. 

'• The copious information which this work affords on 
American subjects, fully justifies its title of an American 
Dictionary; while at the same time the extent, variety, 
and felicitous disposition of its topics, make it the most 
convenient and satisfactory Encyclopedia that we have 
ever seen." — JSTational Journal. 

" If the succeeding volumes shall equal in merit the 
one before us, we may confidently anticipate for the work 
a reputation and usefulness which ought to secure for it 
the most flattering encour.agement and patronage." — Fed- 
eral Gazette. 

" A compendious library, and invaluable book of refer- 
ence."— JV. Y. American. 



" The variety of topics is of coui-se vast, and they are 
treated in a manner which is at once so full of informa- 
tion and so interesting, that the work, instead of being 
merely referred to, might be regularly perused with as 
much pleasure as profit." — Baltimore American. 

" We view it as a publication worthy of the age and of 
the country, and cannot but believe the discrimination of 
our countrymen will sustain the publishers, and well re- 
ward them for this contribution to American Literature." 
— Baltimore Patriot. 

" It reflects the greatest credit on those who have been 
concerned in its production, and promises, in a variety of 
respects, to be the best as well as the most compendious 
dictionary of the arts, sciences, history, politics, biogra- 
phy, &:c. which has yet been compiled. The style of the 
portion we have read is terse and perspicuous; and it is 
really curious how so much scientific and other informa- 
tion could have been so satisfactorily communicated in 
such brief limits." — JV. Y. Evening Fust. 

"Those who can, by any honest modes of economy, 
reserve the sum of two dollars and fifty cents quarterly, 
from their family expenses, may pay for this work as fast 
as it is published; and we confidcintly believe that they 
will find at tjie end that they never purchased so much 
general, practical, useful information at so cheap a rate." 
— Journal of Education. 

" If the encouragement to the publishers should corres- 
pond with the testimony in favor of their enterprise, and 
the beautiful and faithful style of its execution, the hazard 
of the undertaking, bold as it was, will be well compen- 
sated ; and our libraries will be enriched by the most gene- 
rally useful encyclopedic dictionary that has been offered 
to the readers of the English language. Full enough for 
the general scholar, and plain enough for every capacity, 
it is far more convenient, in every view and form, than 
its more expensive and ponderous predecessors." — Ameri- 
can Farmer. 

"The high reputation of the contributors to this work, 
will not fail to insure it a favorable reception, and its 
own merits will do the rest." — Silliman's Journ. 

" The Encylopredia Americana is a prodigious improve- 
ment upon all that has gone before it ; a thing for our 
country, as well as the country that gave it birth, to be 
proud of; an inexhaustible treasury of useful, pleasant, 
and familiar learning on every possible subject, so arranged 
as to be speedily and safely referred to on emergency, as 
well as on deliberate inquiry; and better still, adapted to 
the understanding, and put within the reach of the mul- 
titude. * * * The Ejcyclopajdia Americana is a work 
withont which no library worthy of the name can here- 
after be made up." — Yankee. 



I ' 



ENCYCLOPAEDIA AMERICANA. 



" The work will be a valuable possession to every family | 
or individual that can afford to purchase it ; and we take 
pleasure, therefore, in extending the knowledge of its 
mcri ts." — JVational Intelligencer. 

"This work appears to improve as it issues from the 
press. The number of able writers, who contribute ori- 
ginal matter in all the departments of literature and sci- 
ence is amply sufficient to give it celebrity and high char- 
acter. To men engaged in the active pursuits of life — 
whose time is precious — this popular dictionary is a most 
valuable and ready mode of reference. It embraces brief 
views and sketches of all the late discoveries in science — 
and the present condition of literature, politics, &c. &c. 
Every merchant's counting-room — every lawyer's library 
— every mechanic — every farmer ought to possess a copy 
of this useful and valuable work." — Courier. 

"From the specimen which has already been given, we 
have no hesitation in saying, that in regard to intelli- 
gence, skill, and faithful diligence, it is a work of the very 
highest order. We know of no similar publication that 
can bear any comparison with it for the rich variety of 
valuable information, which it condenses within so small 
a compass. It is free from all the narrowness of English 
prejudice, it contains many important and interesting 
details which can be found in no English production, and 
is a work which could be written by none but German 
scholars, more than two hundred of whom were employed 
in the original compilation." — Boston Observer. 

" This cannot but prove a valuable addition to the lite- 
rature of the age." — Mcr. Advertiser. 

" The vast circulation this work has had in Europe, 
where it has already been reprinted in four or five lan- 
guages, not to speak of the numerous German editions, 
of which SEVEN have been published, speaks loudly in 
favor of its intrinsic merit, without which such a celebrity 
could never have been attained. To every man engaged 
in public business, who needs a correct and ample book 
of reference on various topics of science and letters, the 
Encyclopedia Americana will be almost invaluable. To 
individuals obliged to go to situations where books are 
neither numerous nor easily procured, the rich contents 
of these twelve volumes will prove a mine which will 
amply repay its purchaser, and be with difficulty exhaust- 
ed ; and we recommend it to their patronage in the full 
conviction of its worth. Indeed, it is difficult to say to 
what class of readers such a book would not prove useful, 
nay, almost indispensable, since it combines a great 
amount of valuable matter in small compass, and at 
moderate expense, and is in every respect well suited to 
augment the reader's stock of ideas, and powers of con- 
versation, without severely taxing time or fatiguing 
attention." — Am. Daily Advertiser. 

"The department of American Biography, a subject of 
which it should be disgraceful to be ignorant, to the de- 
gree that many are, is, in this work, a prominent feature, 
and has received the attention of one of the most inde- 
fatigable writers in this department of literature, which 
the present age can furnish." — Boston Courier. 

" According to the plan of Dr. Lieber, a desideratum 
will be supplied; the substance of contemporary know- 
ledge will be brought within a small compass ;— and the 
character and uses of a manual will be imparted to a 
kind of publication heretofore reserved, on strong shelves, 
for eccasional reference. By those who understand the 
German language, the Conversation Lexicon is consulted 
ten times for one application to any English Encyclops- 
dia." — J^ational Gazette. 

" The volume now published is not only highly honor- 
able to the taste, ability, and industry of its editors and 
publishers, but furnishes a proud sample of the accuracy 
and elegance with which the most elaborate and impor- 
tant literary enterprises may now be accomplished in our 
country. Of the manner in which the editors have thus 
far completed their task, it is impossible, in the course of 
a brief newspaper article, to speak with adequate justice." 
— Boston Bulletin. 

" It continues to be particularly rich in the depart- 
ments of Biography and Natural History. When we lo«k 
at the large mass of miscellaneous knowledge spread 
before the reader, in a form which has never been equalled 
for its condensation, and conveyed in a style that cannot 
be surpassed for propriety and perspicuity, we cannot but 
think that the American Encyclopaedia deserves a place in 
every collection, in which works of reference form a por- 
Jion." — Southern Patriot. 



" By fai 
in this cc 



■jy^^g.t^'^tf'^ 



offered for sale 



Nearly all of the volumes of this work are 
now before the public, and the reception they have 
met with is the best evidence that the publishers have 
fulfilled the promises made at its outset. They have 
now only to promise, for the editors and themselves, 
that no exertion shall be spared to render the remain- 
ing volumes equal to those already published, and 
thus sustain the reputation it has acquired. The sub- 
scription is large, and increasing ; and in those quar- 
ters where its circulation is greatest, and where it is 
best known, there is a constantly increasing demand. 
The publishers invite the attention of those who may 
not already have possessed themselves of it, or may 
not have had an opportunity to become acquainted 
with its merits, to the following account of the ori- 
ginal work, upon which it is based, and which is 
termed by the Edinburgh Review — 

THE WORLJ)-RENOWNED LEIPZIG CONVERSATIONS- 



It was intended to supply a want occasioned by 
the character of the age, in which the sciences, arts, 
trades, and the various forms of knowledge and of 
active life, had become so much extended and di- 
versified, that no individual engaged in business could 
become well acquainted with all subjects of general 
interest; while the wide diffusion of information ren- 
dered such knowledge essential to the character of 
an accomplished man. This want, no existing works 
were adequate to supply. Books treating of particular 
branches, such as gazetteers, &c. were too confined 
in character ; while voluminous Encyclopaedias were 
too learned, scientific, and cumbrous, being usually 
elaborate treatises, requiring much study or previous 
acquaintance with the subject discussed. The con- 
ductors of the Conversation Lexicon endeavored 
to select from every branch of knowledge what was 
necessary to a well-informed mind, and to give popu- 
lar views of the more abstruse branches of learning 
and science ; that their readers might not be incom- 
moded, and deprived of pleasure or improvement, by 
ignorance of facts or expressions used in books or con- 
versation. Such a work must obviously be of great 
utility to every class of readers. It has been found 
so much so in Germany, that it is met with every- 
where, among the learned, the lawyers, the military, 
artists, merchants, mechanics, and men of all stations. 
The reader may judge how well it is adapted to its 
object, from the circumstance, that though it now 
consists of twelve volumes, seven editions, comprising 
about ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND COPIES, have been 
printed in less than fifteen years. It has been trans- 
lated into the Swedish, Danish and Dutch languages, 
and a French translation is now preparing in Paris. 

In the preparation of the American edition, no ex- 
pense has been spared to secure the ablest assistance, 
and the editors have been aided by many gentlemen 
of distinguished ability. 

The American Biography, which is very extensive, 
has been furnished by Mr. Walsh, who has long paid 
particular attention to that branch of our literature, 
and from materials in the collection of which he has 
been engaged for some years. For obvious reasons, 
the notices of distinguished Americans are con- 
fined to deceased individuals : the European biogra- 
phy contains notices of all distinguished living char- 
acters, as well as those of past times. 

The articles on Zoology and the various branches 
of Natural Science, and. those on Chemistry and 
Mineralogy, have been prepared expressly for this 
work by gentlemen distinguished in the several de- 
partments. 

In relation to the Fine Arts, the work is exceedingly 
rich. Great attention was given to this in the German 
work, and the Editors have been anxious to render it, 
by the necessary additions, as perfect as possible. 

To gentlemen of the Bar, the work will be pecu- 
liarly valuable, as in cases where legal subjects are 
treated, an account is given of English, French, Ger- 
man and American Law. 



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